Artist's REVIEWS
The Steamboat Today, August 1, 1997
Summer Art '97 By Tom Ross
New York artist Helmut Amann captured "Best
of Show" in Summer Art '97 with a dramatic mixed media work entitled "Silver
Anniversary." It is based on a series of three-dimensional rectangles.
The piece measures 86 inches in width and reflects a subtle mastery of
color, form and shadow. The exhibition will open at The Depot Art Center
with a public reception at 5 p.m. on Friday. The fine art exhibit and
sale features multi-media professional and amateur artists from throughout
the western states.
Susan Totty, an Arizona gallery director
judged the show, with ties to Steamboat Springs. Totty is the director
at Gallery 10 in Scottsdale. She came to Steamboat in 1989 and opened
Four Directions Gallery, which specialized in Native American Art. When
the gallery closed in 1994 she took the position at Gallery 10, where
she assists in purchasing Native American fetishes, Navajo folk art
and contemporary weaving. For more than 25 years, she has been a eclat-tic
collector of Native Americana, contemporary paintings by emerging artists,
outsider art and textiles.
Local artists are invited to discuss their
work over coffee with Totty on Saturday from 9-1 1am at the Depot. Among
the work that the group is likely to discuss is Amann's carefully displayed
series of rectangles.
Amann says his work is about the contrast
between stark lines and fertile color.
"Straight lines are the product of my 25-year
search to simplify art as the abstract expressionist lives it," Amann
said. "In straight lines are the sheerest statement to be made for art,
the clearest. As my work describes ever finer edges, I aim for ironic
understatement in the contrast between bleak unmarried lines and the
lush fecundity of fresh color."
Another artist who makes a strong
impression in Summer Art is Steamboat's own R.C. Dieckhoff
who was awarded first place in the "graphics" category. A noted muralist,
lie has undertaken a series of landscapes done in pastels, Almost all
of his burnishing is done with his fingers-if you look closely you can
see the artist's fingerprints In the originals of works like "Dinosaur"
on the cover of this week's 4 points. The image is that of Split Mountain
in Dinosaur National Monument in neighboring Moffat County. After spending
months making sketches in the field, Dieckhoff says he is about
to enter a major production phase of his artistic life.