Gallery Moab, a cooperative gallery featuring the creative talents of local artists, offers a cool refuge from summer’s blistering heat. It’s a colorful, vibrant gathering spot for artists, art lovers, and casual visitors. Our artists work in a diverse variety of mediums and each has a distinctive vision and style. Each month a different artist is in the spotlight, so there’s always something new, fresh and intriguing to enjoy.

In July, Deborah Mc Dermott is showing new and briefly seen work done over the past seven years expressing her version of landscape. In her acrylic paintings, linocut prints, and oil pastel drawings, she represents the landscape from a number of different viewpoints. Her subjects include eroded cliff walls, idiosyncratic geologic formations, topographic satellite views, and micro landscapes of lichen on rocks.

Born and raised in Utah, Mc Dermott studied art at the University of Utah and later, Queens College in New York, concentrating on drawing and painting the human figure. She made practical use of her art education by becoming an art specialist at a small independent school in Salt Lake City. From there she moved to Moab in 2016 to start a new later-in-life chapter. Wanting the earthy colors and sculpted landscape to influence her art, she explains, “When I came to Moab I became a rock lover. I find rock forms are like the human figure. They have volume and gesture. They stand, or recline, and have profiles that change with your point of view. They have physical integrity and presence.”

McDermott’s process of arriving at imagery starts with walking through the landscape and photographing lots of “ideas.” Photography has been an important tool for her. The photos are like sketches, helping her see and remember the colors, forms, and texture for use later in preparatory drawings. On her computer, she can crop and zoom in. She prefers to separate the experience of being present in the landscape on a hike from the actual working on the pictures she makes of landscapes. She is admittedly not a plein air painter.

McDermott says, “I feel these works begin to zero in on my visual and tactile sensations.” Never entirely satisfied, she keeps searching for new subjects, ways of looking at them, and how to paint them. She assures, “Making art has been my life’s work. I don’t think I get to retire from it.” That’s happy news for her admirers, who look forward to enjoying more of her unique way of experiencing our landscape!

Join us to meet McDermott and mingle with local artists and art lovers at a special reception on Friday, July 5, 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. Refreshments will be provided.

Open Sunday & Monday 12 – 3:00 p.m.; Tuesday through Saturday 12 – 6:00 p.m. One of the artists is always on hand to help you find that special gift or memento.

Call 435-220-0891 and we will gladly open by appointment during other hours.

Gallery Moab LCA • 59 South Main Street #1, Moab, Utah 84532 • 435-355-0024
gallerymoab.com

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