Sixteen years ago, fresh out of college and with $600 in her pocket, Whitney Gardner moved to the Mojave Desert “to see how it would work out.” Today as artist in residence at Wonder Lake Ranch in Twentynine Palms, California—owned by her friends and mentors John and Rebecca Sofio—she is preparing work for her first solo exhibition with Medicine Man Gallery in Tucson, Arizona.
Silent Reverence, oil on linen panel, 24 x 40 in.
She lives in a tiny homestead cabin at the ranch with her studio, a vintage Airstream trailer, parked outside. She steps out of her cabin and gazes at the Sheephole Mountain Range before she goes into her studio to work. “In the studio,” she says, “I’m surrounded by windows so I’m seeing the landscape every day. The studio has its challenges, though. It has a heating and cooling unit which strains to cool when the temperature hits 105 and it rocks in sandstorms and sand gets in.
Yet, it has worked out. She has exhibited in group shows and a solo show in Santa Fe and, in 2023, won the Artists Choice Award at the Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale in Denver.
Her exhibition at Medicine Man Gallery is titled Silent Reverenceafter one of her paintings. The exhibition opens April 3 and runs through May 2.
Golden Nopales, oil on linen panel, 36 x 36 in.
Silent Reverence is a scene of “a glowing misty shower coming out of the clouds and picking up the last light of sunset.” The scene was an unexpected, fleeting moment that she caught with her smart phone to use as a reference back in the studio.
“I have a feeling of awe and appreciation for the changing landscape of the desert and for what I’m able to experience in this life. I have the sensation that all the cells in my body are responding to a scene,” she explains. “It’s maybe not intellectual but more spiritual, making me feel connected to the beauty of the landscape. Maybe it’s both less human and more human.
“I enjoy having two perspectives, the long vista and switching to working with flowers. Painting Golden Nopaleswas a different way to explore color and form with the excitement of the translucency of the bright yellow blooms. There’s the option when painting flowers to make an arrangement, to figure out how to make shadow and areas that are not shadow, creating a different kind of volume.”
Sonoran Spring, oil on linen panel, 16 x 16 in.
She speaks of her experience hiking in the desert when “the light shifts, the desert performs and the land and sky becomes electric. A moment of simple beauty. A moment when life just seems to work out. I stand there, hushed by the reverence I feel to be alive.”
An artist reception will be held on opening day from 5 to 7 p.m. —
Medicine Man Gallery 6872 E. Sunrise Drive, Suite 130 » Tucson, AZ 85750 » (520) 722-7798 » www.medicinemangallery.com
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