Items Similar to Steamboat Twisted
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 5
Gordon McConnellSteamboat Twisted2015
2015
About the Item
Biography
Creating paintings inspired by western movies and by Remington and Russell, he is a native of the West, having been born and raised in rural Colorado. He studied art at Baylor University in Waco, Texas; at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, and at the University of Colorado, Boulder where he earned a Master's Degree in 1979.
For two decades he worked as curator at the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, Montana, before leaving in 1999 to begin work as a full-time painter and independent curator.
His work is in the collections of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming; the Art Museum of Missoula; and the Yellowstone Art Museum; the Federal Reserve Bank in Helena, Montana; and the Deaconness Medical Center in Billings, Montana.
Artist Statement
For a long time, the images in my paintings have been identifiably, even iconically, western-stagecoaches and false-front main streets, poker games and gun battles, cowboys, Indians, cavalry troopers and horses, all suspended in a choreographed matrix of dancing paint. Distinct from the traditional western genre-which inventories the minutia of cowboy gear or tells sentimental stories of rangeland romance-my paintings embody something more elemental and timeless, animated and abstract. The images tend to be stark, graphic, and charged with painterly energy. Though they are derived from fugitive television images, the paintings, as paintings, are still, silent and non-ephemeral. They register the technological transfer of primal shadows onto the electroluminescent screens of our collective consciousness, a shimmering blur of perception and memory transposed in an interchange of gesture and description, painted marks simultaneously arresting and embodying movement. I've always liked what a painter friend, Marc Vischer, wrote in 1988 about an early group of my western paintings. Now, I'm fourteen years closer to actualizing my vision for this work, and his astute remarks seem more pertinent today than they did then. He wrote in part, "For McConnell, a searing light emanates from a new desert: that of television. And from that most desolate backdrop, he salvages fragments from a movie world that spoke of honor in a land that was lawless. In a romantic sense, McConnell's works are a visual seance. Figures, like specters distorted through intense heat waves, are captured from their eternity of 24 frames a second. Their shapes and shadows are brought back into a radically different world and given substance and texture. It is an impossible attempt to freeze them, to arrest the present's ceaseless molestation of the past, to close off the continuum. Sometimes this is done darkly and thickly as an emphatic gesture of permanence. In other works a few light strokes quickly applied suggest the ephemeral nature of film and perhaps the fleeting nature of our own lives."
I have been examining new imagery in my paintings, drawing subjects from Mexican graphic novelas, modern women and men of romance and mystery from the mid-20th century, motorcycles and airplanes. The end titles of movies, stated in several languages, have inspired me to begin a new series of cross-media translations in both acrylic and watercolor. My paintings have long begun where the movies have left off. The elements of water and light co-mingle in some pieces from this series and in others which take the viewpoint of a swimmer, watching other swimmers from the wet side of this aqueous membrane, looking up toward the light.
My arrival in Montana in 1982 brought me into intimate contact with some of the most storied places of the historic West and also gave me the opportunity to study the paintings of two of the most influential codifiers of western imagery, Frederic Remington and Charlie Russell. I became aware of how decisive an effect their work, and the work of other western illustrators, had on the formulations of filmmakers like John Ford, William Wyler, and Howard Hawks. At the same time, I recognized how distinctly different the formalized imagery of western films, in its temporal, technological, and theatrical mediation, is from any painting.
- Creator:
- Creation Year:2015
- Dimensions:Height: 40 in (101.6 cm)Width: 30 in (76.2 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Denver, CO
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU49832085053
About the Seller
5.0
Vetted Seller
These experienced sellers undergo a comprehensive evaluation by our team of in-house experts.
Established in 2000
1stDibs seller since 2016
245 sales on 1stDibs
Typical response time: 1 hour
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Livingston, MT
- Return PolicyThis item cannot be returned.
More From This SellerView All
- The Great OutdoorsBy Travis WalkerLocated in Denver, COFor the last 10 years Travis Walker has made landscape paintings about Jackson Hole, a place that never ceases to inspire him to pick up his brushes. He works on location, capturing ...Category
2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic
- Little Blue DotBy Rocky HawkinsLocated in Denver, COEnthralled with the lore and spirituality of American Indian cultures, his work often depicts these traditional subjects in nontraditional ways. Hawkins captures the raw sense of ele...Category
2010s Contemporary Abstract Paintings
MaterialsPaper, Ink, Mixed Media, Oil, Acrylic
- Feral Seer IIIBy Anne SiemsLocated in Denver, COAnne Siems was born in Berlin, Germany. As a child, she lived for three years near Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her first extended stay in the US was as an exchange student. After finish...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic, Wood Panel
- Transformation No. 6By Rocky HawkinsLocated in Denver, COEnthralled with the lore and spirituality of American Indian cultures, his work often depicts these traditional subjects in nontraditional ways. Hawkins captures the raw sense of ele...Category
2010s Contemporary Abstract Paintings
MaterialsMixed Media, Oil, Acrylic, Wood Panel
- Infernus #1Located in Denver, COElectric Coffin is coded within art history and ideologies from archetypes of mysticism. We explore found truths from modernity and a personal historical perspective. A process-drive...Category
2010s Contemporary Animal Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Glass, Wood, Mixed Media, Acrylic
- Free (After the Black Stallion)By Travis WalkerLocated in Denver, COFor the last 10 years Travis Walker has made landscape paintings about Jackson Hole, a place that never ceases to inspire him to pick up his brushes. He works on location, capturing the essence of the seemingly mundane scenes around town: an old salon, a decaying house with a fence made of skis, a vintage...Category
2010s Contemporary Animal Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic
You May Also Like
- Mixed MarriageBy Maureen O'Hara UreLocated in Salt Lake City, UT"Mixed Marriage" by Maureen O'Hara Ure, mixed media on panel, 16 x 24 inches. Relying on sturdy panel to hold up to months, sometimes years, of revisions, O'Hara Ure slowly builds up an image, obsessively laying down marks in thin, sanded layers of paint, ink, and pencil to create a uniquely smooth, almost polished texture distinctive to her style. When a panel returns to her studio from a show, she may begin to tinker with the image, perhaps first sanding out or painting over just a section. "Often as not, I keep going and start all over, using gesso to erase any memory I have of the painting." "For over fifteen years, all of my major projects have begun with my drawing overseas in museums and at historical sites. I returned to my studio and set about using some of the raw ideas in my travel sketchbooks to begin developing new work, taking liberties with the art-historical material I had collected. The exhibit of new paintings on panel at Phillips Gallery...Category
2010s Contemporary Paintings
MaterialsArchival Ink, Acrylic, Panel, Color Pencil, Paint, Ink
- Large Celestial Painting Mixed Media on Canvas, Blues, Greens, White, YellowBy Alex K. MasonLocated in Versailles, KYLarge Abstract Celestial Painting by Alex K. Mason. "Forgotten Star Lore II". Acrylic, Gouache, Ink on Canvas, 48"H x 48"W x 3"D. Blues, Greens,...Category
2010s Contemporary Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Ink, Acrylic, Gouache
- Portrait of a PugLocated in Brookville, NYBeautifully presented in a silver leaf frame that flatters the blue background in this portrait of a fawn colored Pug. The portrait portrays the Pug as we know them, amusing, charm...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Animal Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic
- "Snake (Black-headed Python) Dreaming" Aboriginal Acrylic Painting on LinenLocated in London, GBLily Hargraves Nungarrayi Snake (Black-headed Python) Dreaming - Warna (Mulyukuna) Jukurrpa (Nungarrayi, Napaljarri-kirlangu), 2015 Acrylic on linen 180 x 60 cmCategory
2010s Contemporary Abstract Paintings
MaterialsLinen, Acrylic
- MultiColor Snoopies Crowd of Dogs on CanvasBy Nina BovassoLocated in New York, NYThis is a 12 inch square acrylic on canvas painting from Nina Bovasso's ongoing "Snoopies" series. The subject never grows tired even though Ms.Bovasso has been drawing snoopy for ...Category
2010s Contemporary Animal Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic, Stretcher Bars
- Anthropogenèse No.3 (anthropogenesis No.3)Located in PARIS, FRCircular oil and acrylic painting by artist Wenyu Zhu. This work shows a peaceful scenery in ancient ocean, in which a frog is standing on the aquatic plant....Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Figurative Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Linen, Oil, Acrylic
Recently Viewed
View AllMore Ways To Browse
Twist Front
Montana Artist
Colorado Animal
Desert Animal
Western Cowboy Contemporary Art
Yellowstone Art
Western Art Cowboy Horse
Cowboy Horse Painting
Heat Wave
Indian Movie
Cowboy On A Horse Painting
Colorado Buffaloes
Mid Century Cowboy Art
Poker Art
Yellowstone Paintings
Modern Cowboy Painting
Western Horse Drawing
Buffalo Bill