Not Plein Jane

Asheville Urban Landscape members, including Cheryl Keefer, show all the shades of the region. Photo by Rimas Zailskas

“It’s what’s on the inside that counts,” one might say to a friend sporting a bad haircut or a teen stressing over a pimple. The outside is what counts, however, to practitioners of an artistic genre that goes back to the Dutch masters — but one that’s especially captivated viewers since its mid-18th-century heyday. Painting en plein air (the phrase is French for “outdoors”) took off when paint itself became more portable. Equipped with the tubes of their trade, artists took to the hills, quite literally, to create

To execute such work, artists must leave the studio — with its physical constraints — and set up a stool and easel on a mountainside, beach, or a city street. Monet’s famous Giverny studies of lily pads and flowers reflect how light, shadows, moisture, and other factors affect a single outdoor image, as opposed to the constancy of a subject sitting indoors for a portrait, or a still life.

Local plein air devotee group Asheville Urban Landscape Project ensures that the medium stays in the foreground of the contemporary local art scene. These passionate makers are smitten with the method; it certainly helps that Asheville and environs offer a world-class backdrop for picturesque canvases.

A Stroll Down Main by Cheryl Keefer

“It’s really painting from life, but unlike a still life, when you might be capturing inanimate objects, you’re painting a living subject — nature — that changes by the minute,” says member Cheryl Keefer. Her pieces aren’t all about sun-dappled trees and moody sunsets, however. “I also paint urban scenes, which change constantly and contain much unexpected beauty. Even including a power line in an urban painting can offer a visually interesting way to break up the sky.”

Keefer cites the medium’s flexibility as one reason to adore plein air. “It allows the artist to execute an entirely different work by simply moving the easel a foot to the left,” she says. While mirror-precise landscapes can result, “we’re not limited to realistic images,” she emphasizes. “We have people in the group who do impressionistic and even abstract-influenced work.”

Taking the Long View by Anne Bonnyman

Plein-air artists’ experiences with the elements also keep things interesting — braving wind, rain, and extreme temperatures is part of the process. “Once I took a small canvas out to a gorgeous garden at the golden hour of the afternoon,” Keefer remembers. “The light was low and angled, I had blossoms surrounding me, and I imagined painting the whole garden. Once I set up, I quickly became covered in hungry no-see-um bugs, so the actual painting ended up being two speedily executed camellia blossoms.” Ironically, she counts the 30-minute study among her best canvases. “It forced me to get down to essentials,” she says, “and not obsess.”

Group member Anne Bonnyman’s love of the form comes from this very unpredictability. “The artist looks out at a complex landscape and must distill an overwhelming number of images into a coherent whole,” goes her definition. She adds, “no matter how well I plan a plein air painting, I’m always surprised by the results. It’s as if the landscape passes through the artist and something about us both is communicated on the canvas. I love that element of mystery in the process.”

Asheville Urban Landscape Project’s featured artists this spring are Cheryl Keefer (April), Gary Cooley (May), and Anne Bonnyman (June). For a calendar of events and for more information, see ashevilleurban.com.

0 replies on “Not Plein Jane”