Jeff Aeling

Volcano - Erupting Volcano with Swirling Cloud of Ash, Framed Oil Painting

2023

Iowa-born artist Jeff Aeling brings striking, enveloping Photorealism to his landscape paintings of the American Southwest. If there is enough distance between a viewer and one of Aeling’s works that the delicate brush strokes are rendered nearly invisible, the act of determining whether it’s a painting or a photograph becomes an arduous task.

Aeling begins his work by taking photographs of his subject. He maintains that the work loses something when painting outdoors, and the lens of photography better captures one’s perception and memory of the experience. The artist conveys the feelings of freedom that a big-sky horizon might afford or the intimacy that a forest glade can provide. He captures the heaviness and chaos of a thunderstorm as masterfully as he depicts the tranquility of an island sunset, and for his realist style and focus on nature, he has drawn comparisons to the Barbizon and Hudson River schools, respectively.

Aeling was born in Iowa City. His father was an army doctor, so Jeff moved around a lot as a child. While his family lived in Hawaii for one of his father's postings, Aeling developed an appreciation and connection to nature. 

Though he’d been painting for years by then, he found representation at the Medicine Man Gallery of Tucson, Arizona, in the mid-1990s. Aeling now lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri, where he continues to capture the essence of nature in its purest form.

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