Surgery requires precision, but Karl Brenner brings a broad touch and a broad choice of geographical subject matter to "Landsape Pantings,” a show of oil paintings at JRB Art at the Elms gallery.
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A resident of Durango, Colo., who retired from general surgery in North Carolina, Brenner depicts not only mountain and mixed desert terrain but California coastal and suburban scenes in his oils.
Rugged peaks loom over brush, boulders and evergreens in the foreground of Brenner's "In Teton Canyon” and over clear, reflecting waters in his "The Twilights from Spud Lake” — two of his best large oils.
Rivaling their impact is "China Cove, Point Lobos (California),” a 36-by-48-inch oil of spruce trees and rugged reddish-brown rock formations reflecting in the green water of a small, secluded beach.
Not quite as large but in ways more effective is Brenner's 24-by-24-inch oil of the "Chama River Valley” in New Mexico.
From a slightly elevated, aerial viewpoint, Brenner directs our attention to a bend in the river, leading our eye through green fields and desert vegetation to distant blue mountains in "Chama River Valley.”
Holding a viewer's interest, too, are many of Brenner's smaller, sometimes gemlike, works in the exhibit.
Scale is provided by a pair of riders in front of the red cliffs of Canyon de Chelly (Arizona), and by a lone hiker during the "Summer at Winterpark (Colorado)” in two small oils, for example.
Sunlit, red-orange cannas punctuate our view of a nondescript gray, suburban house behind them in another small oil, while seaside houses are built into cliffs in his small oil of "Crystal Cove Beach Colony.”
Also on view at JRB is a show of mixed-media works in ink and watercolor from the "Meditations” series of Shawnee artist Paula Willis Jones.
Birdlike and snail-like creatures interact with foliage, faces, decorative and geometric imagery in Jones' delightfully fanciful, almost doodle-like compositions.
"I approached these pieces as simple meditations,” said Jones, a former educator raised in Haskell. "I don't often know what the lines and shapes mean, but I have faith the universe knows.”
Both shows are well worth visiting.
— John Brandenburg
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ON EXHIBIT
"Landscape Pantings” and "Meditations”
•What: Works by Karl Brenner and Paula Willis Jones.
•Where: JRB Art at the Elms gallery, 2810 N Walker.
•When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays, through July 26.
•Information: 528-6336.
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