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