SHFAP presents far north distant west, a series of paintings by Gregory Botts from the mid 1980s. This group of oil and wax works, mostly on paper, date from 1984 and later. Several were done on a trip with Botts' partner, painter Jenny Hankwitz to Nova Scotia, and one work of the series was included in our latest exhibition, 12.21 Solstice. These paintings relate to a larger group of works in which Botts synthesizes his practice of plein air painting with the bravura brushwork and structure of abstract expressionist painters such as De Kooning and Kline.
Botts' admirably articulated surfaces are as much his subjects as the landscape images they contain. In David Shapiro's essay from a 1989 catalog published by the Anne Plumb gallery, he describes Botts' feelings for these surfaces as "a kind of truth to which he returns."
Gregory Botts, Iona Landscape, Nova Scotia #2, 1984, oil and wax on BFK paper, 28 1/8 x 42 3/8 in.
Botts told Shapiro that his "God idea" was "the flowing universe," something we can sense profoundly in these works, which transform the gallery space into a glade in the woods when gathered together. The winds seem to whip around us and the trees loom over and around, created out of globs of paint and broad sweeping strokes. This equivalency between freewheeling painterly application and the complex textures of the natural world are part of what lends this body of Botts' work its immediate appeal.
Gregory Botts is a painter who travels between studios in the desert of New Mexico and upstate New York. Traversing the country in a specialty tricked out Toyota van, he paints from life in the expansive American landscape and visits the often extraordinary works of modern and contemporary art housed in museums throughout the country. In addition to his painting, which has been shown in galleries all around the United States, including the Anne Plumb Gallery, SHFAP, and at the Tony Shafrazi and Salander O'Reilly Galleries, Botts has a published volume of poetry entitled clouds, leaves, waves...
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