Earth artist’s work to appear at 4 Directions Gallery
Maggie Remington’s art is the earth.
She paints with earth. The location of her studio varies, but it is always outside, usually in Colorado or Southwestern United States. And her subject is always the same as her studio.
The result is a collection of abstract landscapes with gentle lines and curves, all done on unstretched canvas that buckles, pulls and wrinkles much as the earth does itself.
Remington’s landscapes will be on display at Planet Earth & the Four Directions Gallery, 524 Colorado Ave., through Aug. 9. An opening will be Friday at 7 p.m.
Initially, it was a dream that compelled Remington to paint. In 1984, she dreamed that she was in a cave, painting with her hands.
The dream gave her an urge to paint that she couldn’t seem to shake. She began experimenting with watercolors, but something about that didn’t feel quite right. She moved on to spreading glue on canvas and spreading sand and earth over the glue.
That technique didn’t produce the results Remington was searching for either.
An encounter with a German earth artist provided the push that Remington was searching for. The artist advised her to mix the earth in with the glue and to spread the mixture over the canvas.
And so, the earth, itself, became Remington’s media.
“These are all Mother Nature’s colors,” Remington said as she set up for Friday’s opening at the 4 Directions Gallery, gesturing to three paintings hanging behind her. The paintings contained warm reds and oranges, cool beiges, browns, intense yellow and black. The earth’s palette, it seems, has not limited Remington in the range of color she is able to achieve.
The paintings themselves are relatively simple – most are essentially a collection of earth tones swirled on canvas.
It takes Remington between two to four hours to actually paint each canvas, she said.
But most of the work, in her case, is collecting samples of the earth – dirt, rock, clay and sand – breaking them down into something she can paint.
The process often takes days. Thus, Remington has taken to camping, often spending the night in the areas where she gathers her materials.
“It’s a lot of work,” she says. She looks at her hands. “No more polished nails,” she says.
It was the Remington’s unique style and technique that attracted Caole Lowry, owner of Planet Earth & the 4 Directions Gallery, to her work.
“Art takes so many forms,” Lowry said. “It’s not just pictures of things that you see.”
But although it’s abstract, Remington’s art still appears to be of familiar places, Lowry said, something she attributed to Remington’s natural palette.
“If you are going over the plains, you’re going to see Maggie’s art,” Lowry said.
For more information, visit www.maggieremington.com or call the 4 Directions Gallery at 256-9630.
By Cara Pesek Free Press Staff Writer
Grand Junction Free Press
Thursday, July 10th, 2003
