Gwen Davidson

"Reflection"  48" x 60"  acrylic and charcoal on paper on canvas  2014

"Wallowa Mountains"  48" x 36"  acrylic and charcoal on paper on canvas  2014

"Fields near Galway Bay"  36" x 48"  acrylic and charcoal on paper on canvas  2012

"Beach Fire"  24" x 36"  acrylic and charcoal on paper on canvas  2013

"Neahkahnie Haze"  48" x 60"  acrylic and charcoal on paper on canvas  2014

Here's another artist whose work will be on display this month in my home town of Portland, Oregon (see also Jackie K. Johnson featured in my previous post). Both artists explore the gray areas between landscape and abstraction, but while Ms. Johnson sets out on what seems to me an almost narrative endeavor, Ms. Davidson's art is more descriptive and meditative. She works initially with a combination of acrylic paint and charcoal on paper. The paper, in rectangular strips of varying proportions, are then applied to canvas. The method gives the work a rigid geometric framework but the organic nature of her subject not only survives but somehow thrives within it. Perhaps the human mind is so powerfully predisposed toward order and pattern that their imposition relaxes the eye to the point where we can more comfortably see. Or perhaps in this age of digital pixellation we are simply more accustomed to viewing re-ordered and restructured interpretations of the world than we are to looking at the real thing. Either way it is clear that Ms. Davidson is a keen observer of both. Even her most abstract pieces unfailingly capture a genuine sense of place and atmosphere.

You can see more of her work at Froelick Gallery where her current show which opens tonight, will run through the end of May. You can see still more at Meyer Gallery in Park City, Utah.