Steve Gerhartz: Sunlight of the Seasons
Lily Pad | West
Milwaukee
lilypadgallery.com
December 2–January 15, 2023
Lily Pad | West is set to present an exhibition of recent landscape paintings by the Wisconsin artist Steve Gerhartz, many of them created in plein air. A dedicated observer of nature, he excels at capturing the unique look and mood of a locale at a specific hour, day, and season.
“Painting outside,” Gerhartz explains, “has been a great experience. I am constantly learning from nature and understanding what happens in certain lighting conditions. I paint on location in all sizes… There is nothing quite as emotional for me as working on a large painting outdoors, trying to capture all that form and space.”
Gerhartz’s creative efforts started when he was 14, during a November snow squall that he experienced with his brother, Dan, also a gifted artist. That episode inspired Steve’s first landscape painting, and he went on to study painting at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts in Connecticut, a location that enabled him to inspect master landscape paintings up close in the Northeast’s leading museums.
Gerhartz appreciates equally the benefits art offers his viewers: “Paintings bring life and the beauty of nature into people’s homes, granting them an opportunity to escape into a place they may not normally have the chance to see, allowing for reflection, growth, and understanding.” This concern for viewers may help explain why Gerhartz hand-carves every frame, each of which perfectly complements the picture inside.
Alan Perlstein and Terry Hamann opened Lily Pad | West in 2015, naming it after the much-loved Lily Pad Gallery in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, which they had supported as collectors for more than 20 years.
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