Triangle Mountain : Geometry of the Soul

In his fourth annual painting show, native New Mexican Steve Elmore celebrates the theme of Triangle Mountain with a dozen new oil paintings. In his continuing quest to realize a new style of southwestern landscape, merging realism with his own personal expression, Steve has created new images of the mountains, trees, and skies of the West, emphasizing their abstract triangular nature. The paintings progress from realism to increasing abstraction achieved over a year of work in the studio. “I look forward to sharing these new paintings in which I am expressing myself through the geometry of the Western landscape. They are different from my previous work and make a unified presentation.”
“I have wondered whether I could commit myself to a series of paintings on a single theme, and unexpectedly, a difficult personal year forced me to focus more narrowly on my painting. I was glad to have a single theme to stay with. I wanted my own inner geometry to merge with the geometry of our Western landscapes. The paintings are not overproduced like much of contemporary art. No computers or perfect tape lines were used in these paintings, just a yardstick, a pencil, oils, and a lot of brushwork. I want to show how simple it can be to paint. Each of the geometric designs slowly emerged from a simpler beginning, in a layered process. At one point, I had to scrape the canvases clean like a pelt to take the paintings to their next level. “I seem to be painting out of the two different sides of my brain, so that some paintings are more geometrical and ordered than the others. I think it takes both sides to keep the paintings interesting.”
“Now I am curious about the new paintings that will follow from this disciplined period.” Steve continued, And my job, of course, is just to keep painting. Keep on living, keep on painting.”