Scapes and scope:
visions of the land, sea, and urban space
The “Scapes and Scope” exhibition at the Huntington Beach Art Center is a wide-ranging collection of over 120 contemporary paintings of land, sea and urban scenes. As curator, I wanted to take an even broader look at how artists - U.S. and international - interpret the subject of “scape.” So, we’ve created this virtual gallery to complement the physical exhibition, presenting works both representational and abstract in nature. I want to express my gratitude to the artists here for permission to use images of their paintings. I especially wish to thank two artists, in particular, whose lives and work are truly inspiring.
Robert Bateman (b. 1930, Toronto) has always painted nature and wildlife. In 1987, I saw his exhibition “Portraits of Nature” at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. I was awed by how his art reflected the scale and beauty of the natural world, and how each piece revealed the quiet wonders of life subtly within the scene.
Fred Cuming, RA (b. 1930, London) is one of Europe’s foremost landscape painters. His imagery is descriptive and immediate. Yet he magically re-imagines everyday scenes through a keen eye that sees light, color, and atmosphere in ways which are distinct, visually mysterious, and truly poetic.
I also want to thank artist and curator E.E. Jacks for her partnership and help with the overall exhibition, and for choosing many of the artists you will see in this virtual show.
Please enjoy this exclusive, online tour of contemporary paintings by these outstanding artists. And be sure to visit their websites for more information and to see more of their art.
-- Jim Ellsberry, Curator, “Scapes and Scope”
Robert Bateman (b. 1930, Toronto) has always painted nature and wildlife. In 1987, I saw his exhibition “Portraits of Nature” at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. I was awed by how his art reflected the scale and beauty of the natural world, and how each piece revealed the quiet wonders of life subtly within the scene.
Fred Cuming, RA (b. 1930, London) is one of Europe’s foremost landscape painters. His imagery is descriptive and immediate. Yet he magically re-imagines everyday scenes through a keen eye that sees light, color, and atmosphere in ways which are distinct, visually mysterious, and truly poetic.
I also want to thank artist and curator E.E. Jacks for her partnership and help with the overall exhibition, and for choosing many of the artists you will see in this virtual show.
Please enjoy this exclusive, online tour of contemporary paintings by these outstanding artists. And be sure to visit their websites for more information and to see more of their art.
-- Jim Ellsberry, Curator, “Scapes and Scope”
Presenting virtual Artists
Tony Allain
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ZHONGWEN HU
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Tony Allain
Tony Allain,
“Cornish Coastline”,
Pastel,
19 1/2 x 25 1/2 Inches
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Tony Allain,
“The Potato Field”,
Pastel,
19 1 /2 x 25 1/2 Inches
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Tony Allain is a Scottish based artist. He is an award winning painter, instructor and author and has been painting for over 40 years. a member of the Pastel Society London, an Associate member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists among others. A self-taught painter of colour, light and movement with a complete understanding of his surroundings. Born and raised in the Channel Islands he moved to paint and live in Cornwall to capture the unique clarity of light living on the peninsular of the West Country. Tony has exhibited extensively over the years, his work can be found in many leading galleries as well as private and corporate collections worldwide.
ROBERT BATEMAN
Robert Bateman,
“Redwings and Yellowthroat”,
Acrylic on canvas,
24 x 72 Inches
"The favourite thing of the majority of people is to sit on a beach by a lake or ocean. This is not my favourite thing. I prefer swamps and marshes because of the rich diversity of wildlife. In early summer families of redwinged blackbirds cavort among the lily pads and rushes. As I paddle my canoe I hear the northern yellowthroat more often than I see him. In this painting I chose to leave out the obvious adult male redwings. After all, most of the birds are either females or young and I did not want to distract from the banquet for the eye one finds at the edge of a marsh.”
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Robert Bateman,
“Whistling Swan - Lake Erie”,
Acrylic on board,
36 x 48 Inches
"The lone swan pictured here is searching for the flock to settle down for the night on the broad, flat Lake Erie lowlands. The landscape is reminiscent of its wide open nesting grounds in the North. I have made the sky a very important element in the painting. It is wide and endless -- it is the highway for these great birds. At the top of the picture, you can barely make out the vapour trail of a jet aircraft echoing the form of the swan's wing and reminding us of the fact that the skies no longer belong to the birds alone."
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DAN BECK
Dan Beck,
“Hazy Day”,
Oil,
9 x 12 Inches
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Dan Beck,
“Rocks and Wave”,
Oil,
8 x 16 Inches
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“Painted a few years ago, in the spirit of how far can I abstract this before I don’t have the scene anymore. Obviously, could have gone further, but that’s where it took me that day. Keeps me aware of how my intent or a mind shift can determine the direction of that days work…”
"Painting is a balancing act between opposite ideas - direct observation and instinct, control and spontaneity, even between the literal and the symbolic. It seems to me that although a painter is deeply involved with his own private investigation, his real aim is to communicate something to the viewer that resonates on a uniquely personal level."
"Painting is a balancing act between opposite ideas - direct observation and instinct, control and spontaneity, even between the literal and the symbolic. It seems to me that although a painter is deeply involved with his own private investigation, his real aim is to communicate something to the viewer that resonates on a uniquely personal level."
Zufar Bikbov
Zufar Bikbov,
“Clearing”,
Oil,
12 x 24 Inches
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Zufar Bikbov,
“December Sun”,
Oil,
14 x 24 Inches
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Russian-born Zufar Bikbov started taking painting classes at age nine, and did his first plein air works at eleven. When the time came to choose a college and profession, his soul called for the need to help people, and this led to a medical career and eventually a move to the United States. Art never was left behind and continued to be an essential part of his self-actualization. Zufar was honored to participate in the exhibit “Doctors Paint” in the State Museum of Fine Arts in Kazan and at Yale Medical School. Zufar’s town and landscapes style lean towards Russian and Soviet era impressionism. For him art is a continuous experimentation and growth. His works are in private collections in the United States, the UK, Spain, and Russia.
Colin Bishop
Colin Bishop, "Ball Hill, Plush, Dorset, 6.03 pm - 8.56 pm, 2nd June 2020", Oil on canvas, 22 x 23 1/2 Inches
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Colin Bishop, "Ball Hill, Plush, Dorset, 8.04 am - 12.02 pm, 8th May 2020", Oil on canvas, 21 x 23 Inches
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UK artist Colin Bishop prefers to work outside, directly from the subject and without preparatory sketches. “What you see, hear, smell and the unexpected things that nature has to offer all go into the melting pot. There are two distinct locations in Dorset that have been the focus of my work in recent years, namely Briantspuddle Heath and Ball Hill near Plush. These places are like “open air studios” for me, places that I go back to over and over again. My paintings are as much about the development of a personal language as they are about landscape.”
Mark Brockman
Mark Brockman,
“Morning Rain”,
Watercolor,
12 x 12 Inches
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Mark Brockman,
“Wound”,
Watercolor,
20 x 20 Inches
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Mark has been painting for over 40 years, working primarily in Watercolor and Pastel, as well as various drawing media. He comments, "My life experiences influence what and how I paint a subject and it is the viewers' life experiences that influence how they view a work of art. I have an idea, an emotion that I try to express in an individual work, it is up to the viewer to bring their own emotions into play when viewing a work of art. Viewing art is not a spectator activity, it requires participation from all parties."
Tom Brown
Tom Brown,
“One More Row to Hoe”,
Watercolor, 16 x 20 Inches
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Tom Brown,
“Through the Back Gate”,
Watercolor, 16 x 20 Inches
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Tom Brown is fascinated with old structures found on farms and in rural areas. They have so much character and rich history. He's delighted when he comes across another old barn or dilapidated building. It's almost as if he's destined to tell their story. On more than one occasion he's come back to a location weeks later to find the property scraped and there's no evidence it ever existed. Living in North Texas affords Tom many opportunities to study and paint landscapes and rural America.
Kyle Buckland
Kyle Buckland,
“Morning's Glory”,
Oil on linen,
12 x 16 Inches
Kyle’s style of painting, which is deeply rooted in the fundamental philosophies regarding Impressionism, is as unique as his subject matter is inviting. His work has been featured in Plein Air Magazine on multiple occasions. He has won numerous awards, conducted paint-outs and taught painting classes at every level. He is a resident artist at The William King Museum of Art's Artlab, where he maintains a painting and teaching studio. His work is represented in hundreds of private, public and corporate collections around the world…
Jackie Clark
Jackie Clark,
“Show the Way the Wind Blows”,
Oil on panel,
5 x 10 Inches
"When I paint trees, it’s as much about the air as it is the tree. These pushed and pulled by the wind-force to pay homage to the Northeast."
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Jackie Clark,
“The Causeway at Tupper Lake”,
Oil on panel,
6 x 18 Inches
"I painted this from a causeway on the Racquette River in Tupper Lake, NY. The Adirondacks."
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“When I paint the landscape it’s a cherished meditation. The experience of the heat, or the cold of a place. The sound of it, the trees bending to the wind, the rustling of leaves, the rain patter on a forest canopy. Seeing the glare of the sun, or the looming dark on the horizon. I watch the lava lamp of clouds, shape shift before my eyes. I can see shadows, like ancient clocks, marking time. Then to paint the electricity of all these parts, fused into one. I share the meditation.”
Fred Cuming
Fred Cuming,
“Evening Walker”,
Oil,
12 x 12 Inches
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Fred Cuming,
“Will-O-Wisp”,
Oil,
28 x 32 Inches
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Fred Cuming was born in London 1930. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1974, and has exhibited regularly in the UK, Ireland, Europe and the United States. Cuming has devoted his life to expressing the fleeting impressions of his surroundings. His work is about responses to the moods and atmospheres generated by landscape, still life or interior.
Gianne de Genevraye
Gianne de Genevraye, "San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary", Oil on Linen, 36 x 38 Inches
Gianne is a Contemporary Nature Painter, exhibiting widely throughout Europe and the United States. She received her BFA at the University of California Irvine, studying under contemporary masters Judy Chicago, Tony DeLap, Craig Kaufman and John Paul Jones. She was studio assistant to Jennifer Bartlett in Paris and an Invited Artist at the American Academy of Rome. Since 2011, Gianne has established painting residencies in public gardens that lead to on-site exhibitions. She has been invited to paint in Japan, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Southern California. In 2021, she was a juror for the Festival des Jardins de la Cote d’Azur and had a solo show at the Magazzino Gallery in the palazzo Contarini-Polignac in Venice, Italy.
Jenny Grevatte
Jenny Grevatte,
“Behind the Huts, Southwold Harbour”,
Mixed media,
24 x 35 Inches
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Jenny Grevatte,
“Winter Down by the Reservoir”,
Mixed media,
17 x 24 Inches
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Jenny Grevatte is a UK mixed media artist who is continually evolving and developing her ideas and methods. Her earlier work was concerned mainly with landscape, recording the many places she visited such as France, Spain, Greece, Italy, and Morocco. Recent themes include trees and woods, hedges, rooftops, huts, bookshelves, trips to Italy and Cornwall, sunflowers and, her constant favourite, still life. Scale, format and composition are exciting challenges for her and recently she has been exploring the quality and mystery of changes of light in the landscape. Her attention sometimes veers toward the abstract, but always with a nod to the world around her. Jenny's work is in demand in Britain and abroad with paintings in public collections including New Hall and Christ’s College, Cambridge; the National Museum of Johannesburg and the Saarland State Collection, Germany.
Krista Harris
Krista Harris,
“Solstice with Jupiter”,
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas,
48 x 36 Inches
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Krista Harris,
“April”,
Mixed media on Arches paper,
50 x 38 Inches
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Krista Harris is an expressionist painter whose work blurs lines between abstraction and the natural world. Richly layered and nuanced surfaces keep various ideas in the air, as if waiting to come into focus. Allusions to landscape and the figure, interwoven with pattern and stitched together with line, collaborate to suspend a moment in time, something almost recognizable, suggestive of a place that is everywhere and nowhere at once.
Zhongwen Hu
Zhongwen Hu,
“Rooftop II”,
Acrylic and pastel on masonite,
11 x 14 Inches
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Zhongwen Hu,
“Tennis Court”,
Acrylic on canvas,
24 x 36 Inches
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"My work consists of paintings that use narrative as a means of developing ideas. I depict seemingly insignificant, but touching, moments and compose the simplest daily scenes so that people can always find themselves in the images."
A.J. Nesselrod
A.J. Nesselrod,
“72521”,
Acrylic,
8 x 10 Inches
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A.J. Nesselrod,
“61121”,
Acrylic and charcoal,
9 x 12 Inches
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Nesselrod’s original approach to exploring life, interprets light, hue and contrast in a wonderfully expressive manner. The viewer is gifted with a vision of immersion and introspection in his connective and atmospheric work. “I’m drawn to what’s happening, what I see, especially now,” he says. “I’m not romantic in my painting.”
Lewis Noble
Lewis Noble,
“Lumsdale Waterfalls”,
Oil and mixed media,
40 x 40 Inches
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Lewis Noble,
“Sparkling Sky”,
Oil,
34 x 34 Inches
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Lewis Noble is a UK artist based in Derbyshire, England. His paintings stand in for the landscape itself. The process of building many layers of paint over time, eroding and repainting, has echoes in the way the landscape is made. Many of the works are painted outside or begun in situ then completed in the studio.
Desmond O'Hagan
Desmond O'Hagan,
“Barges Along the Seine”,
Oil,
10 x 8 Inches
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Desmond O'Hagan,
“Chamisa and shadows”,
Oil,
18 x 24 Inches
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Born in Wiesbaden, Germany, Desmond was raised in the United States and resides today in Denver, Colorado. He devotes his time to his art in oils and pastels, traveling throughout the world. His artwork has been selected for inclusion in prestigious exhibitions across the country, including Denver Rotary Club's "Artists of America," Colorado Governor's Invitational Art Show, The Pastel Society of America (NYC), and the Salmagundi Club in New York City where he was honored with the George Innes, Jr. Memorial Award. He describes art as a form of storytelling, "... and mine tells the story of interpreting light – a constant element in my paintings."
Gabriel Palma
Gabriel Palma,
“Hawaiian Shores”,
Oil on canvas,
11 x 14 Inches
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Gabriel Palma,
“On Holiday at the Fords”,
Oil on canvas,
18 x 24 Inches
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"Born in the "the valley" of Los Angeles county, to a large Italian/Croatian family, I started painting when I was about seven. Painting at that point actually meant crayola markers, and using those crayola markers to mostly just draw and create my own levels to Super Mario World. Growing up, my Godfather Leonard who was an artist himself, would take me to the Getty Museum and I remember never really leaving the Impressionist wing. I loved the idea of how the artist's took what was real everyday life, and made it eternal, just by the way they were laying on the brush strokes. To this day, I paint to try and meld my everyday reality with my imagination. I guess, for me, its the implementation of our imagination that gives art a quality that might make it hang around for a long time."
Mike Ray
Mike Ray,
“Mt. Garfield”,
Pastel,
16 x 20 Inches
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Mike Ray,
“Winter Abstract”,
Pastel,
16 x 20 Inches
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Born and raised in Colorado, I paint the landscape that fashioned my youth and experiences. In the beginning I painted those places of my memories. As I continued to grow as an artist, I became more drawn to the quality of light in Colorado and the west. I love dissecting the light and dark within warm and cool shadows, a push-pull that lures me into every painting. It has become impossible for me to look at things without noticing the quality of light that defines my surroundings.
Alex Schaefer
Alex Schaefer,
“9th and San Julian, L.A. Skyline”,
Oil on canvas,
24 x 36 Inches
"This urban landscape was painted from the roof at 9th and San Julian depicting the Los Angeles skyline. Plein air is for me always the most fun and true way to capture the color of a place." Alex Schaefer is southern California born and raised in 1969 and is an active fixture in the contemporary art scene. His oeuvre is wide ranging from traditional plein-air landscapes, cityscapes and street scenes to figurative nudes, portraits and abstract and imagination paintings. In 2011 Schaefer gained international recognition for his art with a series of banks on fire in protest of financial crimes.
John Sollom
John Sollom,
“Beacon Ready Mix Plant, Irvine”,
Oil on canvas,
12 x 12 Inches
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John Sollom,
“Wilshire and Harbor Blvd. Fullerton”,
Oil on canvas,
12 x 12 Inches
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"These two paintings were part of my Concrete Jungle series. Our beautiful world is being replaced by concrete and man made structures that are swallowing up our lives. Giving way to more pollution and less of oxygen promoting trees and natural landscape."
Sabrina Stiles
Sabrina Stiles,
“Listening to BB”,
Pastel,
28 x 28 Inches
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Sabrina Stiles,
“Wink”,
Pastel,
16 x 16 Inches
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Sabrina Stiles is a pastel artist with an expressive style that lends itself to her chosen medium. Primarily a landscape artist, she draws inspiration from her travels as well as the beautiful landscape near her home in Colorado. Her keen observation and reverence for the beauty that surrounds her is evident in her work. She asks “What if...?” every day at the excitement of facing a blank surface and the anticipation of what it will become. "It’s the challenge and endless possibility of creating two dimensional slices of life that motivates me as an artist."
Harry Stooshinoff
Harry Stooshinoff,
“After the Storm”,
Mixed media,
6 x 8 Inches
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Harry Stooshinoff,
“Southward”,
Mixed media,
8 x 8 Inches
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I live in the rolling countryside of the Oak Ridges Moraine, an ancient landform located just north of Lake Ontario, and am inspired by what I see every day. I roam this unique place in all seasons and document my impressions. At first view, rural environments may seem natural, but they have been continually altered and reshaped by man. The landscape will be very different tomorrow; it seems negligent not to record how it looked and felt today. It’s a big noisy world, so I make small, quiet paintings.
Scott A. Trimble
Scott A. Trimble,
“Nature lightly swallow the horizon”,
Oil on linen,
40 x 30 Inches
This painting is currently in the hands of an art dealer in Beijing
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Scott A. Trimble,
“By my third night in the German woods, I began hallucinating, dreaming I was a dauber”,
Oil on canvas,
14 x 18 Inches
Collection of Sandra Willard (previously shown in 2016 at South Bay Contemporary Gallery in San Pedro, CA, and in 2017 in Histories & Memories at the Tom Thomas Gallery, Indiana University East, curated by Joshua Hagler.
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...Trimble examines the elusive nature of recall within the hidden structures of relationships and emotional wellsprings as he focuses on their interplay with the sparks and shadows of the mind, and its stories. He reuses and repurposes his own canvases, partially or sometimes wholly obscuring previous images, pressing the remainders into service of new, multiple palimpsests that both mimic and replicate the way our memories construct themselves over time...'
Virginia Unseld
Virginia Unseld,
“Selvages”,
Mixed media on panel,
12 x 12 Inches
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Virginia Unseld,
“The Language of Trees”,
Mixed media on panel,
12 x 12 Inches
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Virginia Unseld is both a plein air painter and studio painter. Her home and studio are at 9,200 feet in the Colorado Rockies. She has been painting the western landscape for over 40 years, has exhibited extensively, and has won numerous awards. She describes her work as being about the act of joyous mark-making, as much as it is about the subject she is painting. Always evolving, she comments "My most recent work is abstracted landscapes and themes from nature. I call these visual haiku - deceptively simple."
Eric WARBURTON
Eric Warburton,
“Flood Plains”,
Acrylic,
8 x 8 Inches
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Eric Warburton,
“Summer Storm”,
Acrylic,
8 x 8 Inches
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Eric lives in Northamptonshire, a county in the East Midlands of England. Inspired by the surrounding countryside, he paints quick, intuitive landscapes which he uses to make abstract landscape collages. He says about painting, “You need to find your own way. At the end of the day, you have to learn… and the only way you learn is by painting. That will give you a lift, and the emphasis and encouragement to carry on.”