Len Heid came by this afternoon to drop off his Palouse landscapes for our upcoming show which opens tomorrow. Len is a classically trained oil painter who lives in Moscow, Idaho, and loves to drive the back roads through the hills and fields of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho. For him, painting is all about carefully observed light. His painstaking technique is reminiscent of the Hudson River School, focusing on the infinite variations of light working on the land. his favorite times of day are sunrise and sunset.
We had a long discussion, as we usually do, about the role of beauty and craft in art. The painting above represents what he believes in well. To me it is also an unusual balance between representation and abstraction. It is clearly a very realistic landscape, but because the artist has pared down the forms, it is also just a series of lines and shapes defined by color. And in Len's case the crowning accomplishment is the glowing light, the luminous aura, which suffuses the work.
