September at Gallery Moab

Serena Supplee has happily been creating art in Moab on the Colorado Plateau since 1980. “I love to peruse the great outdoors….to see what catches my eye....a spot that “speaks to me,” then sit quietly and draw with a pencil. Sometimes I scout locations and then come back another day to sketch. Many places are remote, so I drive my 4-wheel-drive vehicle and pitch a tent, staying a few days on location. I also row my boat down the river, often for multiple nights, seeing yet another perspective. When I find a great spot, I sit in the shade of a tree, umbrella, or my vehicle to sketch an idea. By spending time concentrating on the scene before me, drawing the place imprints changing shadows and colors in my mind. I choose to work from my sketches rather than photos to give my imagination more rein. My paintings are my eye, not the camera’s eye.
“Visiting places again shows me how connected everything is. When I am on top at the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands, seeing the Six Shooter Peak in the Needles brings the Needles closer to me, even though it is a 3-hour drive. This feeling of “Bridging” as I have come to refer to it, happens everywhere. Seeing a feature I am familiar with and bridging it to a new site, expands my experience and the map of this amazing place in my head. People ask me, “what’s your favorite location?” I don’t have a favorite spot, it’s the moment….How I choose to look at it, how I feel in the moment. There’s only beauty to find.”

Describing Serena’s style is challenging. Bold, bright colors that undeniably depict the Colorado Plateau hint at something other than realism. Like the legendary singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, another artist difficult to define as far as style goes, whose music is “not really folk, not really jazz,” Serena’s artwork “is not abstract, nor is it realism.”

In 2012 the St. George Art Museum featured 30 of Serena’s night paintings in a one-woman exhibit titled “Starry Night”. A few of these paintings can be seen at Gallery Moab where Serena is the guest artist this September. Currently on view at the Moonflower Community Co-op are two of Serena’s large oil paintings. In March of 2018, Serena’s art will be exhibited at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff.

Join members at Gallery Moab for a reception held in honor of Serena Supplee and her unique, colorful art from 6-9 on Saturday, September 9. That night the September Art Walk will again be in full swing.

Gallery Moab, a co-op gallery founded by a group of local artists in March of 2014, showcases the work of a diverse group of artists who live and work in southeast Utah, and who cooperatively own, operate, and staff the gallery. The gallery, open daily from 12-9 pm, is located at 87 North Main Street in Moab.
See more of us at gallerymoab.com and on Facebook.

And be sure to mention you heard about it in the Moab Happenings.