Aleta Pippin shares her love of color.

 

Aleta Pippin’s love of color is obvious when you view her paintings. Here she shares her feelings about color.

Dad called me the “Why girl”. At the age of two I continually asked him why? Why this? Why that? It seemed like everything I saw or felt was fair game. Dad was very patient!

As is the case with most children, I was so excited about the world, I wanted to know everything. I wanted to explore everything. I was also intrigued with what I perceived to be “the beyond”. We lived above a store in Battle Creek, Michigan when I was 3 to 4 years old. My bed was in the corner and when I sat on the bed in that corner, I could hear muted sounds, like voices, so that was my favorite place to sit and listen. As a child, I found this so intriguing – positive I was hearing other-worldly sounds. You guessed it, my bed was probably over a ventilation shaft and the voices were those from the store below. However, I prefer my child’s fantasy; it’s much more interesting.

I’ve always been one to push the envelope. In high school, I could hardly wait to get out and begin living my life. I took classes during summer school every year and toward the end of the first semester of my senior year, I went to the office and asked how many credits I had and how many were necessary to graduate. I had enough credits and told the counselor that I wouldn’t be returning for the last semester. Then I went home and told my parents I was finished. Dad said, “get a job.” I realize my parents’ approach isn’t acceptable today, but in the 60’s things were different or my parents were…not sure which. I just knew that I wanted change.

Since the death of my husband in 2017, I’ve been in another phase of self-exploration and expansion. I have been blessed with a full and exciting life and could continue happily in Santa Fe. However, Austin is calling and I realize it’s time for me to push the envelope again. To that end, I’ve rented an apartment and once there will locate studio space and continue producing passionately energetic, colorful abstract paintings. Of course, I’ll keep my home in beautiful Santa Fe and continue to enjoy its amazing weather and culturally rich environment.

I’m so excited about this new adventure and will keep you posted.

New Work from Aleta’s Personal Collection
Passion by Aleta Pippin, oil on canvas, 40″ x 40″, Collection of the Artist
Not Finished Until I’m Done by Aleta Pippin, acrylic on 2 panels, 3″ x 54″ x 2″ and acrylic on yupo paper affixed to 3 panels, 4″ x 60″ x 2″ – Collection of the Artist
New Work – Available
Momentum is an abstract painting created by Aleta Pippin Santa Fe contemporary painter
Momentum by Aleta Pippin, acrylic on panel, 44″ x 44″ x 2″

This is my first video for the year created by Kyle Maier, Kamio Media. We spent several days conversing about various aspects of painting as it relates to my life journey. He condensed numerous hours of conversation down to a few minutes. What a talent! I also want to acknowledge Gregory Webb who wrote the soundtrack.

Enjoy the video.

Last October, I made an important decision to change my life drastically. I decided to close Pippin Contemporary and have more time to focus on my artwork and pursue other opportunities.
I admit it – I’ve been a control freak many years of my life. I wanted so much for everything to run smoothly, for my children to do as I requested, for my husband’s business to do well (aside, he was in the oil and gas exploration business drilling wells for limited partnerships in the late 70s early 80s – disaster) and that the business I started in Houston would be successful (opened in 1984, sold in 2008). Being tightly wound, I achieved a lot, but I was taking steps that didn’t necessarily give me joy.

Aleta Pippin, Santa Fe abstract artist at Pippin ContemporaryAleta Pippin’s solo exhibition, “Landscapes of the Mind” opens on Friday, July 5th with a new body of work that represents subconscious emotion in response to nature and physical environments. For Pippin, it’s the clear light, deep blue skies, long views and majestic mountains of the desert – from her childhood memories in Southern California to her adult life in Santa Fe – that stir her passion, influence her emotions and fuel her paintings.

In her latest work, Aleta Pippin describes the landscapes of her life with warm color, rugged texture and abstract mark making – an artist’s emotional impression of breath-taking sunsets, impressive mountains and desert flora. In addition to outward environments, Aleta Pippin’s exhibition paintings also symbolize internal landscapes as bursts of movement and variations of color relate to personal growth, influential relationships or followed dreams. In this way, Aleta Pippin aims to connect with the viewer on an emotional level while reflecting on her own journey.

“The title of my exhibition is a metaphor for each of our life journeys, decisions made, dreams won and lost, love, health, joy – life. As such, the paintings will no doubt be interpreted by each viewer’s perception, choices, decisions, and overview of their own life.”

Below, Aleta Pippin provides insights behind her new paintings for “Landscapes of the Mind” in how they relate to the energy, color and emotional impact of nature.

The Portal by Aleta Pippin at Pippin ContemporaryThrough The Portal, oil on panel, 60″ x 24″

“The colors in this painting can be found in the rich blue of desert skies, rose and pinks of sunsets and blooming cacti, yellow represents the vibrant warm sun that heats the environment. One can imagine diving through the portal (light pink moving into the yellow almost in the middle of the painting) and swimming around in the rich color, enjoying the texture, searching behind the forms, so much to observe in this painting.”

 

Intertwined by Aleta Pippin at Pippin ContemporaryIntertwined, oil on panel, 48″ x 48″

“This painting moves away from my very abstracted work by giving you well-defined forms resembling flowers. I kept the major portion of the pallet in purples and grays purposely to draw your attention to the light magenta emanating from behind the flowers, with an alizarin yellow, and teal and red pops of color.”

Movement in Color by Aleta Pippin at Pippin ContemporaryMovement in Color, oil on canvas, 36″ x 60″

“To me, this painting is purely abstract – it’s all about color and energy. I blossom in a more arid climate and this painting represents that energy. The colors are the rich hues of the desert and the movement of strong wind whipping bushes and palm fronds about.”

Click here to view more paintings by Aleta Pippin

Click here to read Landscapes of the Mind press release

Our mission at Pippin Contemporary is to cultivate a “sensory experience of color and mood” for our visitors and collectors. Represented artists are chosen with this value in mind; our painters and sculptors thrive on creative processes that are tuned to the emotional effects of color. Whether it’s abstraction, representation, painting, sculpture or mixed media, the varied styles and mediums of our artists rely on color as a signature form of expression. Our September group exhibition features five artists whose wide-ranging aesthetics are connected through color. Liz Barber, Elizabeth Hahn, Suzanne Wallace Mears and Gina Rossi are featured for “In Living Color,” a dynamic visual display that conveys the powerful emotional impact of color through art.

“In Living Color” features an eclectic array of artwork that ranges from contemporary landscapes to ethereal abstracts, from luminous glass sculptures to whimsical portraits. Color is central to the artists’ process, however, uniting them in an otherwise diversified exhibition.  Below is a sample of each artist’s work paired with personal insights on the importance of color in their work, inspiration or process.

Liz Barber

The backbone of my painting process is an intuitive emotional response to color. As I am painting I am thinking about color relationships and am responding to the colors being placed on the canvas in a very emotional way.

My paintings for “In Living Color” are inspired by the coming of spring. It is such a dramatic shift to go from barren trees to bursts of green and vivid colors. The shapes in my work reflect flower petals and foliage bursting with color all around me during springtime here in Atlanta. 

Elizabeth Hahn

Color, pattern and relationships are the basis of my work. My exposure to generations of female relatives’ vibrant and brightly colored patterned quilts is an early impression that eventually found its way into my art. I initially took up sewing, quilting, and embroidery, but it was too tame of a creative endeavor. However the colors and patterns remain in my artwork.

Very Easy Rider by Elizabeth Hahn at Pippin Contemporary

Very Easy Rider by Elizabeth Hahn

Gina Rossi

The first thing I notice about a landscape is usually the light. I am challenged and enthralled by light and how to interpret it.  Color is next, but really cannot be separated from light because when I am painting, I am using color to express light, glow, atmosphere, etc.  And then it is the solitude, which comes from the vastness of the landscape.  There is serenity to it even in the middle of a storm.  It stops me in my tracks and I really want to express that feeling.   

Santa Fe’s color seems magical and almost unworldly. I will be driving in late afternoon and often have to pull my car over to stare at the sunsets and cloud formations. I don’t take photographs and I don’t rush to my studio to paint it.  I wait until it settles in my mind’s eye and at some point it shows up in the work.

Driveby 17 by Gina Rossi at Pippin Contemporary

Driveby 17 by Gina Rossi

 Suzanne Wallace Mears

I use color and texture to create energetic, luminous, and joyous works with glass. Bright and bold reds, blues, and oranges reflect my travels in color-saturated countries such as Tibet, Nepal, China and Mexico.

At random I use solid color fields as a challenge to my driving love of vibrant color. My favorite themes are inspired by nature and antiquity. The message I want to convey is a joyous, energetic rendezvous with positive directions.

Old Mill Valley by Suzanne Wallace Mears at Pippin Contemporary

Old Mill Valley by Suzanne Wallace Mears

Aleta Pippin is constantly evolving her creative practice. Over the course of her career the Santa Fe artist has poured, brushed and scraped; she’s worked with oil, acrylic and mixed media as well as canvas, aluminum and panel surfaces. Pippin is even known to incorporate digital and new media components into her paintings. “I continue to experiment which is key for my creative muse,” she says. “New ideas are continually born, some finding their way into new work.” Unchanging in Pippin’s process, however, is her commitment to color and the emotional effect it can have on the human psyche. “Color is my driving force,” she states.

Dreamland III by Aleta Pippin

While impressions from Pippin’s early life would become a key inspiration for her artistic career, she didn’t begin painting until 1992 upon moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Influenced by Santa Fe’s creative culture, she began taking classes and experimenting with various media and painting styles until honing in on acrylic and oils. In 2003 Pippin fully committed herself to her art, which she considered to be her third career after building a business and raising a family. “My passion for painting became realized when it bloomed into a full-time career,” Pippin explains. “I improved my technique and found my voice – becoming an abstract painter.”

Trip Through the Cosmos by Aleta Pippin

Pippin’s July exhibition, “Here We Go Round in Circles,” is indicative of her commitment to creative exploration as well as her early and ongoing passion for painting in oils – the medium she always returns to even when continuously exploring other avenues. Her love of color, as always, is consistent throughout the exhibition. Her spontaneous nature and personal life impressions also remain constant across this body of work. “I do not plan the images,” she explains. “They are intuitive interactions created by life experience, accessing my broader knowledge. The impressions of my childhood environment express themselves in my paintings. They show up as color, freedom and energetic movement.”

Aglow I by Aleta Pippin

Pippin’s return to oil – her original inspiration for pursuing a career as an artist – is represented in pieces like “Joy Spreads,” “Carried by the Wind” and “Summertime, Sunrise.” Circular paintings such as “Trip Through the Cosmos” illustrate Pippin’s current explorations painting in the round. For these pieces, Pippin uses a variety of tools including her hands or a spinner to move paint across the panel. The panels are painted with colored resin, which incorporates acrylic or oil paint, and are often embellished with copper leaf or gold leaf details. “Resin is an interesting medium,” says the artist and gallery owner. “It accentuates the surface yet is a visual block to the viewer. In a way it says come closer, but not too close.”

Here We Go Round in Circles I by Aleta Pippin

Other mixed media pieces in the show are created using this process including “Fracture II” and “Through the Portal.” Here We Go Round in Circles opens with an artist reception on Friday, July 6th from 5-7pm. Click here to preview Pippin’s work in the online exhibition catalog.

 

Artists Aleta Pippin, Jami Tobey, Jeffrey Beauchamp and Gina Rossi will present contemporary visions of the landscape in their upcoming group exhibition, Inspired Views, opening Friday, September 8th, 5-7pm. The artists offer modern interpretations of typically traditional subject matter through their own distinct styles, which are guided by an emotional, visceral response to nature. This week, we’re highlighting the work of Aleta Pippin and Jami Tobey, two painters whose work is fueled by the versatility of their materials, the emotional resonance of color, and their dramatic desert surroundings.

Aleta Pippin fully abandons the classical techniques of landscape painting in favor of abstraction. Pippin’s current environment in Santa Fe as well as memories of her childhood in southern California has instilled in her an awe-inspiring view of the desert. The artist recalls the desert’s ever-changing light as she explored the San Jacinto foothills as a young girl, with rose-colored skies descending over craggy mountain ranges. Light and color are Pippin’s driving sources of inspiration; these elements along with a fluid and intuitive painting process allow Pippin to reveal her personal relationship with the landscape, which is one of freedom and adventure.

The Journey by Aleta Pippin at Pippin Contemporary

The Journey is a 54×18” atmospheric oil painting that Pippin has created for Inspired Views. Pippin says of this painting: “I like the color and light in this piece. When I was a child the idea of climbing the first hill to see what’s there was an inspiration for hiking. This painting feels like if you climb the foothills and continue on, you’ll eventually reach the furthest pinnacle. It’s also a metaphor for life’s adventures and challenges as we (hopefully) become wiser as a result of those opportunities.”

The same environments that permeate Pippin’s canvases also come through in Tobey’s work. The stylized landscape painter grew up in Santa Fe and currently lives in southern California, where broad skies and billowing clouds dominate the artist’s views and compositions. Color also plays an important role as “it sets the tone and decides the atmosphere” of each piece. Mountains and mesas adorned with metallic ink are blanketed with a celestial glow as clouds swirl through vivid hues above, guiding our attention skyward.

“Sonic Desert” is a new mixed media piece in the show that pays homage to New Mexico and its spectacular skies. Tobey says of this painting: “Sonic Desert has an element of collage, which I’m really interested in right now. I love paper and its versatility, especially how it can add to the story of the painting. I love the crispness of the story of this painting, with the big New Mexico skies and rolling landscapes. I come from the perspective that the real landscape is in skies, and I like bringing that feature into my work.”

View the Inspired Views group exhibition catalog here and be sure to browse more new paintings by Aleta Pippin and Jami Tobey on our website.

The combination of painted line, ethereal color movement, vivid patterning and sculptural luminosity will blend together for a bold and dynamic visual display in “Emotional Expressions in Color,” opening July 7th from 5-7pm at the gallery. This group exhibition will highlight the work of sculptor Suzanne Wallace Mears alongside painters Stephanie Paige, Liz Barber and Elizabeth Hahn. The painters in the show compliment each other’s aesthetic; Stephanie Paige’s horizontal hues ground us in a meditative color experience while Liz Barber’s bursts of floating forms excite our psyche. Elizabeth Hahn brings us back to reality with her figurative work, which also continues to immerse us in vibrant displays of color but with whimsical patterning.

Paige’s symmetrical compositions typically lend themselves to square and rectangular picture planes, however for this exhibition the artist has produced circular shaped paintings with a similar aesthetic. In “Be True” and “Luna’s Ocean,” variations of a single color tone blend together and are balanced around a contrasting line of pigment. Pleasing for our eye and mind, Paige’s pigment and plaster paintings are representative of awe-inspiring moments found within the natural world.

Barber is similarly inspired by nature and its seasonal rhythms. The Georgia artist favors the springtime when waves of color and intriguing shapes begin to emerge from the environment. Barber’s excitement for the season shows in her work; many of her paintings are named for the spring season’s cool rain, soft light and sweet song. “I typically focus on botanical elements,” says Barber of her work. “Buds popping out on tree limbs, flower petals emerging, grass pushing through the ground…this is the inspiration for this body of work.”

Hahn has a more representational and POP art approach when it comes to portraying her experience with nature. The Santa Fe artist inserts curtailed figures into her snapshot compositions of juxtaposed patterns and bright colors. Most of her work is focused around feet and their intimate interaction with the environment; blue high heels dance across wood floors while patterned cowboy boots traverse a desert environment. “Walking has always been my exercise, my therapy and where all my ideas for art come to me,” explains the artist of her preferred subject matter. Hahn’s body of work is a joyful reminder of life’s simple pleasures and wondrous views, while acting as a welcomed contrast to the otherwise abstract aesthetic of the exhibition.

Are You Late for a 10:30 Class by Elizabeth Hahn at Pippin Contemporary

Are You Late for a 10:30 Class?, Elizabeth Hahn, 30×30″ acrylic

Join us for the opening reception of this exuberant exhibition on Friday, July 7th from 5-7pm at the gallery.

Desert Dreamer by Suzanne Wallace Mears at Pippin Contemporary

Desert Dreamer, Suzanne Wallace Mears, SOLD

Emotional Expressions in Color opens this July as a powerful display of emotive energy, from meditative abstraction to whimsical realism. Suzanne Wallace Mears is the only sculptor in the exhibition of four artists; her work plays an important role in breaking the show’s two dimensional boundary with a striking display of sculptural luminosity. Stephanie Page‘s soothing yet vivid color palette, Liz Barber‘s joyous abstraction and Elizabeth Hahn‘s vibrant patterns are each physically embodied in Mears’ tabletop vessels and totems, which are infused with the spirited personality of the Oklahoma City artist.

“My totems are flamboyant, whimsically named and conjure up pure fun,” says Mears, who approaches her work in an abstract manner but with a specific theme and color palette in mind. Each piece takes on its own eccentric persona from the artist’s imbued energy, from the whimsical “Alligator Swag” and “Awesome Frank” to the mystical “Desert Dreamer” and “Spirit Memories.” Below are some of the artist’s personal contemplations on her latest work.

“Rain Dance represents how it feels to play out in the pouring rain, while Little Reef Knight is that little elusive reef fish peering out from a hiding place in the coral. The Vegetarian with rust, green and a topknot of handout plasma cut steel seems like it could be a culinary delight. Alligator Swag is a cocky alligator dressed up for a night in the glades, and Amber Waves is about the wheat fields and blue skies, lazy days and easy thoughts.”


Mears cuts flat sheets of glass and layers them to fire flat in her kiln, incorporating embellishments such as copper, wire and dichroic glass into their shapes. Multiple firings at anywhere from 1200 to 1500 degrees are often required for the artist’s desired effect, with pieces remaining in the kiln for days at a time. “It’s a delightful, challenging dance,” says Mears of her process.

Vibrant, luminous color is the driving force of inspiration for Mears and is the common thread that connects the four artists represented in Emotional Expressions in Color. Learn more about the exhibition here, which opens Friday, July 7th from 5-7pm. Browse Mears’ full inventory on her artist page of our website.

Suzanne Wallace Mears Pippin Contemporary Artist

See Exhibition Catalogue.