BY KAREN BOSSICK
Charles Burchfield has been described as a mystic artist and a cryptic painter of transcendental landscapes.
And, indeed, the 20th century artist’s work would seem to depict trees with telekinetic halos and haunted houses emanating ectoplasmic auras, according to Jerry Saltz in “The Village voice.”
The artist, who grew up in Ohio next door to Niagara Falls, worked his hallucinatory designs into patterns disguising tanks while assigned to the camouflage unit in the Army in 1918. And it was only later that some began to suspect his hallucinatory flair might be inspired by manic episodes in his work, which includes drawings, watercolor paintings and even wallpaper based on his design.
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts will honor this artist with its new exhibition “Burchfied’s Influence: Hayley Barker, Anna Fidler, Katy Stone.”
An opening celebration will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, June 29, at The Center, 5th and Washington streets. It will include refreshments. And artists Anna Fidler and Katy Stone will make remarks at 6 p.m.
Curator Courtney Gilbert said the exhibition had its genesis in the realization that some art Fidler had done for an earlier exhibition Kristin Poole had curated reminded her of Burchfield’s work.
“Anna said, ‘I love his work,’ and said she had been influenced by him,” said Gilbert.
“I think he’s been under-appreciated until recently, although he recently received some attention from the Los Angeles County Museum and Art,” she said. “But his work is so energetic, so radiant. There’s energy pulsing through his work.”
The Center’s exhibition illustrates Burchfield’s impact on a generation of contemporary artists like Fidler, who have been inspired by his ideas about the intersection between the spiritual and natural in the creation of new work that continues his legacy.
Burchfield translated a belief in the spiritualized natural world into radiant landscape patterns. His paintings were inspired by pilgrimage sites, divine experiences and landscapes.
Fidler, who makes layered, almost topographical works on paper, created some of her work during a residency at the Sun Valley Center in Hailey, which was also the birthplace of poet Ezra Pound. Her work of landscapes is populated by mysterious figures and they pulse with what she describes as positive energy as she considers the relationship between the natural world and the supernatural realm.
Stone created a site-specific installation that suggests fantastical botanical specimens from another world that seem to vibrate in space.
And Barker, like Burchfield, is drawn to spiritual places and figures, such as mystics. She, too, fills her paintings with radian mystical light and dynamic energy.
Other events associated with this exhibition, which runs through Sept. 21:
Free Gallery Walks—5 to 7 p.m. Friday, July 6, Friday, Aug. 3 and Friday, Aug. 31.
Fee Exhibition Tours—5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 12; Thursday, Aug. 30, and Thursday, Sept. 13.