Blues and Greens of Spring // Third Traveling Exhibit Arrives at the Kamas Library

The third traveling exhibit of the year has arrived at the Kamas Valley Library. This exhibit’s theme is Blues and Greens of Spring.

Inspired by the saturated hues of the crisp, spring sky and lush plant life covering the whimsical, meandering hills I've been ogling over on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, I found myself drawn to the blues and greens used in this exhibition. This, what seemed to be an endless, record-breaking, winter has slowly started to thaw, hydrating the life beneath the snowpack and exposing bright green earth. I deeply cherish this colorful time for who knows how long until Utah hits triple digits on the thermometer and the vibrant colors around us turn to golden browns.

Martina Hebert's "Yellow in Bloom" depicts grassy hills behind a pared-down field of flowers. For her sky, Hebert keeps the work loose. Instead of blending the paint to create a gradual fade of blue, she instead uses a large brush and leaves a blocky gradation, which reads almost as very large pixels. She achieves a depth of color, a mottled field of blue that the viewer's eye blends into the sky. The flowers in the foreground are composed of fast, energetic splotches of colors: red, orange, and yellow. Instead of careful rendering, Hebert employs a high-energy percussive application of her paint that harkens to Impressionism, but, with the chunky sky, also gives a nod to contemporary digital photography.

In Dean Vernon's "A Train Passes through Hoytsville" you see a train cutting through a lush emerald landscape while storm clouds gather above. The forward car bears the initials of the Union Pacific Railroad, with the following cars carting coal. The painting celebrates the completion of the railway between Coalville and Park City. 

Barbara Hortin’s painting captures a scene many Utahns know well; a bright afternoon at altitude, surrounded by the lush rustle of the wind through the evergreens and the sound of a small mountain river. The water in Hortin’s piece holds the colors of the sky and trees while allowing us to glimpse the striking reds and browns of the rocks beneath the surface. The eye is drawn up the river, leaping trout-like up the small waterfall created by fallen branches, until it meets the width of the woods and the small cut of blue sky that both suggests the size of the firmament beyond the painting’s frame, and invites our attention to linger on the forest itself, and to wonder at all it might contain.

Take some time to check out this wonderfully bright exhibit before it leaves on June 30th.