Defining Spaces: New Work by Cynthia DeBolt features Colorado painter’s unique take on the land
DURANGO, Colo.: December 15, 2015; Sorrel Sky Gallery presents Defining Spaces: New Work by Cynthia DeBolt opening March 3, 2016. Meet Cynthia DeBolt at the opening reception from 5:00 -7:00 p.m. at the downtown Durango gallery. The show runs through March 30.
Cynthia DeBolt’s reductive painting style is the result of her interest in eliminating elements from the observed landscape to create invented places on her canvases. She uses photographs as reference points, attaching them to her easel, while she paints. By the time DeBolt has finished a painting, there is little resemblance to the photograph, having reduced the visual information to areas of color, shape, contrast and texture.
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DeBolt hopes her paintings function as a meditative source for the viewer - a focus for contemplation in a busy and complex world. Her paintings are a visual hint to the viewer and the artist to eliminate the unnecessary details in one’s life and strive for a general economy of lifestyle.
She offers, “Inspiration comes when I see something I perceive as unique in a landscape – treetops interfacing with a storm sky, the curve of a river through a field, the boundary of the ski meeting the slope of a hill. The desired result is a paring down to that which will convey the abstract quality - the essence that attracted me in the beginning.”
Having grown up in Michigan, she earned a B.S. in Design with an emphasis in painting from the University of Michigan where she was influenced by Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. Her paintings can be found in private and corporate collections in the U.S. and abroad. DeBolt lives and creates in Durango, Colorado.
Sorrel Sky Gallery owner, Shanan Campbell Wells, finds DeBolt’s paintings, “quite elegant and infused with an inner light that is calming and restful.”
Sorrel Sky Gallery’s fresh approach to Western art presents a select collection of contemporary and traditional fine art and jewelry for the discerning collector. Sorrel Sky Gallery was founded in Durango, CO in 2002 and opened its Santa Fe, NM location in 2014. It represents over 75 painters, sculptors and jewelers including bronze artist Star Liana York, painter Billy Schenck, and Ben Nighthorse, among others.