Andrew Bolam’s newest show at Stremmel Gallery in Reno, Nevada, is titled A Western Journey. Although it refers to recent work, and recent journeys, it also calls back to 30 years and countless trips into the American West.
“I love traveling around the West, visiting the national parks and other places where I enjoy photographing wildlife, making plein air painting studies and just seeing the West. Whether it’s mountain biking or hiking or driving around looking for wildlife, this is my obsession,” Bolam says. “I’ve tried to get to know these places on a very deep level and really experience them.”
St. Martins Summer, oil on canvas, 72 x 48 in.
Among the new works are prime examples from all three of his major themes: wildlife images that are very graphic and sparse with bold designs and traditionally painted wildlife subjects, tonalist-influenced landscapes that play with negative space and the horizon line, and large portraits of Native American figures.
Forest Friend, oil on canvas, 30 x 60 in.
“I don’t like the word style because it feels very artificial and surface-level, so I prefer the word ‘themes.’ These are the different approaches that I take to my work,” he says. For the wildlife images, these are very different concepts with the bold designs and the more traditional wildlife representations in the forest or in groves of aspens. With these I’m really trying to emphasize the emotional response that we have when we see wildlife in person. By enhancing the silhouettes and partly hiding the animal behind the trees, it resembles the in-person feeling of encountering wildlife. It’s deliberate design to make wildlife fresh, but also realistic.”
The Sentry, oil on canvas, 58 x 58¼ in.
One of the new wildlife works is The Sentry, which shows a large elk in an entirely white scene. Even the white-barked aspens get lost in his field of white paint, and yet the elk pops out, as if emerging from a dream.
In a new landscape piece, Homecoming, Bolam paints a made-up location that will feel familiar to many views. The familiarity is intentional. “Sometimes I paint specific places, but almost always they are not specific places but a feeling of a place or of a memory of places. These feelings of memories and dreams are intentional. These are my feelings about the West,” he says. “Anyone who has traveled around the West has seen places like this, and maybe this image will help them connect with that place.”
Homecoming, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 in.
A Western Journey opens November 12 with an artist reception from 5 to 7 p.m. in Reno. —
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