I Give You Mountains and Rivers Without End Works
Works by Dan Gottsegen
Songs of Nearing Light, Dan Gottsegen, Oil on Canvas, 72“ x 60”, $14,000
Folley Hall Gallery
April 21st - July 9th, 2022
There is something precious, almost spiritual that is captured in the color and pattern of Dan Gottsegen’s paintings. Lush green landscapes are illuminated by toned light, saturating the eye of the viewer with the abundance of summer flora.
Gottsegen (he/him) is a synesthete. Synesthesia is a unique neurological condition that allows Gottsegen to sense color in sound. His landscapes are abstracted by patterned bands of color that depict music in these natural spaces. Gottsegen’s fully abstracted pieces capture the color and movement from selections of jazz.
Gottsegen has found a way to dance with the lush Vermont landscape. His solo exhibition, I Give You Mountains and Rivers Without End is an offering for us to join in that dance of color and movement.
Exhibition Reception and Artist Talk
Thursday, May 12th
5:30 to 7:30pm
Selections from the Exhibition
Artist Statement
Based on my active engagement with the wilderness, my work is influenced by week or longer, completely solitary hikes in the high Sierra, the deep forests of Vermont and the Adirondacks, and other wild places. Often, I walked miles off marked trails, in the West above 10,000 feet, camping and painting alone in my ongoing wilderness wanderings and meditations. I live close to the land on over 100 acres of field and forest, marking changes in the seasons, and noting the visual music of life around me.
I often derive images by “capturing” stills from videos that I shoot. I find surprising compositions and qualities. Other images arise from deep memory and circulate in my paintings. I explore different modes of “seeing” and expressing the fact and feelings of the world. I combine and overlap images, often improvisationally.
I am interested in painting that is luminous. I am drawn to paint itself, to its material qualities. I often work in the nexus between digital and painterly visual language.
An earlier raptor series reflects my experience for over a decade trapping, banding, measuring, and releasing hawks in California’s Marin Headlands to study their migration patterns. My involvement in this study was born out of many powerful encounters with owls and hawks that I had been having for years. It still informs much of my work.
Painting is for me much like the walking and seeking in the wilderness, a process of searching and an act of improvisation and revelation.