An Exhibition of Landscape Painting

Sponsored by Del and Joe Wharton
September 6-27
First Friday opening September 6

Philip Carlton is a contemporary landscape painter re-defining what it means to paint “an impression” of the American West. 
Carlton focuses on capturing fleeting light and atmospheric conditions within his landscape painting. Although his artistic philosophy is more "impressionist" than "realist," his work has a style which is anything but classically impressionist. His painting technique has been shaped by years of working almost exclusively on location. Rather than exhibiting the slow subtlety most common among oil painters, his work involves bold brush strokes and heavy use of fast-drying layers, opting to show vigorous marks rather than hide them. Over time, his oil painting has evolved into an aesthetic more commonly associated with acrylic or gouache. 
The more one explores Carlton’s paintings and sees them as a cohesive body of work, it becomes apparent that his impressions are built upon deliberate imprecision; wild and authoritative brush strokes remind the viewer that paint is a fluid medium, and chasing the sun is both a gift and a constant peril. At the same time, one immediately becomes aware of his reverence for exact value and color temperature. For him, a moment is recalled through broad patterns of light and dark values, warm and cold hues, and not through fine details of line or texture. This focus can be seen in all his work and is often most readily experienced in the small work that he has increasingly become enamored with creating. 
Painters can do what photographers cannot. In paint, Carlton records the transition of time over hours. An impression of a sunrise is the totality of a morning, not a brief memory of a singular moment. Every painting that Carlton makes is an essay in how a photography alone can’t truly record the human experience of being lost in the vastness of the American West.