Bill Sawczuk’s Wistfully Western Landscapes
SUMMER STORM
Oil on canvas
14×18
triofineart.com
THE ARTIST: Bill Sawczuk
KNOWN FOR: Brushy and atmospheric Western landscapes depicting the scenes and seasons of Wyoming.
BORN IN DETROIT, BUT: “I always thought that I would one day move out West. In 1972, I took a motorcycle trip around the country and I ended up by Yellowstone—I liked all the wildness of it. I couldn’t live in a city or even near a city again.”
THE WONDERS OF WYOMING: “In Jackson, you have the mountains and the wildlife. You can range into the farm country or the big ranch country—there’s never a shortage of subjects. I want to give an impression of how big and empty Wyoming is. Most of the things here are wide-open and lonesome.”
A PASSION FOR PLEIN AIR: “When you’re a plein air painter you have to catch in town hours not only the subject itself but the feeling and the mood. You can’t spend time detailing. That loose style is very appealing to me; I’m trying to figure out ways to say more with fewer strokes. People see things that aren’t there—they complete it with their eyes.”
A SLOWER LOOK: “I don’t know if it’s because of age, but lately I take a slower look at things—I’m looking closer at the essence, an intimate scene in big, wide-open country. And just a tiny slice of it can tell people more about the feeling of these spaces than gigantic paintings of the whole panorama.”
ON VIEW: July 6-23, 2016, in a solo exhibition at Trio Fine Arts, Jackson, Wyoming.
