Leave No Trace and Nine Colors of the West
Plein Air at Armory Center for the Arts
Plein Air is a group exhibition that explores shifting ideas of western landscape, painting, and fieldwork. Traditional plein air painting, which typically involves painting outdoors in a single sitting to capture a vista in a certain quality of light, is taken as a point of departure to consider the ways in which humans use, observe, record, and commune with the land. In this exhibition, the practice of plein air painting is considered in the context of land surveying and settling, public and private space, multidisciplinary onsite research, art history, and the embodied experience of being there. Outdoor painting from observation is approached as ground truth—as bearing witness—a way to experience, process, and understand a range of physical landscapes, and our relationship to them.
The exhibition includes work by Susanna Battin, Esteban Cabeza de Baca, iris yirei hu, KB Jones, Hillary Mushkin, Sterling Wells, and Paula Wilson. The exhibition was organized by guest curator Aurora Tang for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson. An expanded version will be on view in the Armory’s Caldwell Gallery from July 21 to December 10, 2023. —ArmoryArts.org
Dates: Jul 21—Dec 10, 2023
Gallery Hours:
Fridays 2-6 PM, Saturday & Sundays 1-5 PM
Admission is always free.
Plein Air, installation view. Courtesy of Armory Center for the Arts. Photos by Jackie Castillo.
Color Field Paintings, from the Nine Colors of the West series, 2020-2023 US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) color swatches, produced by the BLM National Sign Center, Rawlins Field Office, Wyoming. 24" x 48" each. Courtesy of Armory Center for the Arts. Photos by Jackie Castillo.
Nine Colors of the West series and Leave No Trace series, installation view. Courtesy of Armory Center for the Arts. Photos by Jackie Castillo.
Nine Colors of the West series and Leave No Trace series, installation view. Courtesy of Armory Center for the Arts. Photos by Jackie Castillo.
Nine Colors of the West series and Leave No Trace series, vitrine containing paintings, digital and 35mm photographs, sketches, and BLM publications. Courtesy of Armory Center for the Arts. Photos by Jackie Castillo.
Sudan Brown, Carlsbad Canyon, Juniper Green from Leave No Trace series, digital video. Courtesy of Armory Center for the Arts. Photos by Jackie Castillo.
Plein Air, installation view. Courtesy of Armory Center for the Arts. Photos by Jackie Castillo.