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Ann Korologos Gallery presents What Lies Beneath: Andy Taylor and Amy Lay, an exhibition featuring vibrant Colorado landscape painter Andy Taylor and introducing Oregon-based wildlife painter Amy Lay. Amy Lay will be live-painting at Ann Korologos Gallery in Basalt Friday, July 19th from 2pm to 5pm, followed by an Artists’ Reception with Andy Taylor and Amy Lay from 5pm to 7pm. The exhibition is on view July 19th through July 31st, 2024.
“What Lies Beneath is an invitation to feel the mood and majesty of a moment of observation depicted in the colorful, gestural style of Andy Taylor and to experience the movement and memory of beloved wildlife in the loose, illustrative style of mixed media artist Amy Lay,” shares Sue Edmonds, gallery director. “Both artists paint with an instinct that brings mood, movement and light to their work, showing the ‘bones’ of their illustration through unique applications of oil paint.”
Andy Taylor has been drawing and painting the scenery within a day’s drive of his Carbondale, Colorado studio for more than fifty years. Taylor is known for his characteristic brushwork, palette and abstract representation of Colorado landscapes. The “Master of Color” paints light as he sees it in the mood that is evoked in a fleeting moment.
Using oil paint in thin layers of vibrant and complementary color achieves a sense of light and depth within the landscape that changes the mood of the painting as the light changes in the day and season. The subjective reactions to reality in the form of shape and color are a signature of Taylor’s work.
Taylor starts his process with pen and ink sketches with marginalia or a sketch with oil pastels, a process he considers to be the bones of a painting and a form of meditation. His sketches are visual reminders of a scene, but are always left incomplete, leaving room within the process to “invent significance and freedom to make discoveries” as he paints.
The artist often revisits the same areas to paint with an evolving style that reflects his curiosity as an artist and the knowing that the landscape has changed both in form and through his perception.
Amy Lay is a contemporary wildlife artist, the third-generation living on the ranch her family homesteaded in the mountains of Northeastern Oregon. Primarily self-taught, but grateful for her Bachelor of Fine Art from Eastern Oregon University, Lay’s mixed-media subjects are illustrated from imagination and memory of wildlife encounters. “Instead of trying to find a photograph, I draw and paint from my imagination,” reflects Lay, “And that gives me freedom, which gives the piece freedom.
The movement is everything for me.” She renders her creations primarily with oil pigment and the organic and confident presence of graphite and charcoal. Starting with illustration, Lay draws animals from her memory, emphasizing the movement of each creature. Trained in watercolor painting, Lay applies these techniques using oil paint and washes over the original drawing, which she allows to show.
A bold use of color, powerful, yet simple design and an ephemeral quality in her use of medium influenced by years of painting strictly in watercolor has given Amy’s work a highly recognizable and unique signature quality. Vibrancy, a sense of looseness and a comfortable nontraditional style are all ways in which Lay’s work have been described by collectors.
What Lies Beneath: Andy Taylor and Amy Lay is on view July 19th through July 31st, 2024 at Ann Korologos Gallery in historic downtown Basalt. For more information, please visit the gallery at 211 Midland Ave in Basalt, call 970-927-9668, or inquire online at art@korologosgallery.com.
