Slate Gray June: Lisa Lebofsky + Coming Attractions!

01 Jun Slate Gray June: Lisa Lebofsky + Coming Attractions!

Thursday, June 3,, 2020, marks the first Telluride Arts’ Art Walk of the summer season. Throughout the month, Slate Gray Gallery Telluride is featuring the work of  Lisa Lebofsky.

Complimentary gallery guides are available for self-guided tours at participating venues or online at telluridearts.org/art-walk-2020. 

Go here for more about the Slate Gray stable.

Go here  for an overview of all participating Art Walk galleries.

Lisa Lebofsky, photo by Brian Buckley

Giverny, Vernon, Deauville/Trouville, Le Havre, Étretat, Rouen, Dieppe. Those are the names of towns immortalized in oils by a group of young French artists who, in the 19th century, decided to break away from traditional themes – read religious and historical subjects – opting to engage with the picture-postcard beauty of the landscapes on the path of the Seine River all the way to Normandy.

That fraternity, which came to be known as Impressionists, found they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by working quickly in front of their subject, in the open air or en plein air, rather than in a dusty old studio from sketches. The result: light and color and the shifting shapes and patterns of a natural scene got incorporated into their game-changing paintings.

Wyoming View 1

Fast forward to today, artist Lisa Lebofsky is a child of that tradition –  and a would-be game-changer, but with a very different agenda. She is an Impressionist 2.0, a nomadic plein air painter, who documents areas around the globe that are particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change. Recent travels include Antarctica, Newfoundland and Labrador, Greenland, and The Maldives.

Form of Formlessness

Lebofsky’s art is imbued with what she once described as “a quiet, yet invasive energy, with space for contemplation for the viewer.”  Put another way, her paintings (on aluminum), on scales large and small, explore the limitless capacity of the mind to expand and imagine when engaging with Mother Nature.

Great examples of Lebofsky’s generally reductivist view of her surroundings du jour are her captivating images of frozen water, either large slabs or crisscrossing the picture plane in compositions reminiscent of Abstract Expressionist works.

“The awesome power of nature is unquestionable in her painting, but one is also struck by the calligraphic beauty of these giant mounds of ice. This is a landscape where nothing appears to live and yet it remains eerily peaceful,” said one critic.

Melting Iceberg – Greenland 1.

Ice Breaker 1

Ice Breaker 2

Artscope once asked Lebofsky if she thought creating work that celebrates and focuses on natural surroundings encourages viewers to become more active in protecting our environment.

The artist’s response follows:

“Yes. I’ve actually written an article about this… Art generates awareness. We care about that with which we are aware; which in turn, inspires us to be better. In humanizing the story of climate change, by revealing nature’s vulnerabilities as our own, it is my intention for my audience to be moved to respond personally and proactively.”

Lisa Lebofsky, more:

Lisa painting in Terra Nova.

Lisa Lebofsky is a painter who resides (when not traveling) in Bronx, New York.

Lebofsky holds a BFA in metals from SUNY New Paltz and an MFA in painting from the New York Academy of Art. Her work is in private collections and has been exhibited in solo and group shows nationally and internationally.

Lebofsky is the recipient of several awards and residencies too, including the Prince of Wales Scholarship travel grant to the Château de Balleroy, France (2005); the Terra Nova National Park Artist in Residence (2010); and the BRIO (Bronx Recognizes Its Own) Grant from the Bronx Council of the Arts (2010).

Slate Gray, coming attractions summer 2021:

July Art Walk: Felice House

Featuring limited edition prints from her well-reputed “Re:Western Series,” and new landscape paintings from a recent atelier residency. Second solo show at Slate Gray

House, West Texas

August Art Walk: Katy Parnello & Molly Perrault

This show is a local duet and Katy’s second group show at Slate Gray, which features new works made with LEDs. August marks Molly’s second group show too and features her newest series of collages of Southwestern landscapes.

“The Body Electric — pause, listen, count,” Katy Parnello

Moment in the Sun, Molly Perrault.

September Art Walk: Painter Fran Nagy’s first solo show at Slate Gray:

Grandmother Bear

October Art Walk: Mark Bowles’ first solo show at Slate Gray:

A Day in Transition

“Whether I am working with a still life, the human figure, or landscape, what fascinates me, compels me to paint, is texture, form and color, which I use to express how I feel about what I am seeing…My heart is always pushing my work to find a new language to show what I see and how I feel about that. The result, therefore, is not just an intellectual exercise; it is being involved in the Now, open for change and challenge, always evolving.”

For now, Mark Bowles gets the last word.