A new show at the Marshall Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, asks viewers to examine the American West through three different perspectives. What the Land Remembers will feature the work of a trio of artists: Nocona Burgess, Anton Nowels and JR Sanders.
Nocona Burgess (Comanche), Llano Estacado/Flight, acrylic on canvas, 15 x 30 in.
“What makes What the Land Remembers particularly compelling is the conversation that happens between these three artists. Each brings a very different perspective to the landscape, creating an opportunity to consider the West beyond a single visual or cultural narrative,” says Jen Pugh, the gallery’s director of sales and artist relations. “There’s something really interesting about seeing how memory, identity, observation and place can manifest so differently from one artist to the next.”
Nocona Burgess (Comanche), Llano Estacado/Stand, acrylic on canvas, 15 x 30 in
Peter Straub, Marshall’s owner, notes that collectors will be drawn in by the visions of the land within each work. “The landscape of the West has always given artists something to wrestle with: its beauty, its scale, its history and its sense of permanence,” Straub says. “What I appreciate about Nocona, Anton, and JR is that they each bring their own experience to that tradition. The land may be the subject, but what an artist sees in it and what they bring to it is always changing.”
Anton Nowels, Cool Light, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 in.
Burgess, who is Comanche, is well-known in Western art circles. His new works will explore the show’s theme through his modernist paintings of nature and wildlife. “I’ve been wanting to readdress some landscapes and collectors have been asking of if I was going to do more,” Burgess says, adding he will be showing two new works, Llano Estacado/Flight and Llano Estacado/Stand. “The Llano Estacado is the ‘Staked Plains’ of West Texas and home of Quanah Parker and the Quahada Comanche. Driving through you always notice everything is below the horizon. Everyone talks about how flat it is there and fail to look below the surface. It’s canyon country. I played with the idea of canyons and below the surface in abstract landscape and the people and animals that remember it there.”
JR Sanders (Navajo (Diné)), Continental Divide, oil on stretched canvas, 24 x 30 in.
In Nowels’ works, the painter uses a more impressionist style to paint the land. “Cooling Light is connected to my memories of the Arizona monsoon,” he says. “Growing up in Phoenix, I remember the moment when the heat finally breaks—the air cools, the light shifts and the entire landscape quiets. That transition became the starting point for this painting.”
Sanders is joining the show after an extremely promising presentation at work during Santa Fe Indian Market in August. The artist, who is Navajo, brought dozens of plein air paintings as well as major studio pieces that kept his booth on Palace Avenue full of visitors all weekend. This Marshall show will offer collectors another chance to appreciate and collect his work.
The show opens on November 12 with an opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. in Scottsdale. —
The Marshall Gallery 7106 E. Main Street » Scottsdale, AZ 85251 » (480) 970-3111 » www.themarshallgallery.com
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