
24 August 2016 01:37PM
by Mona Mark
Thomas Sarrantonio and Harry Orlyk, both plein air painters, create in an ‘in-between’ space, a difficult place to describe, where multiple states of being and movement become melded into one. It is neither purely here in the subject nor there in nature but somewhere ‘in-between’ that the artist and nature are both participants, where the outer and the inner become a ‘one’, a vortex breathing life onto a canvas that is in a sense painting itself, the artist a conduit.
When standing in front of their canvases the viewer becomes aware of the creator as being both in his center while at the same time being immersed in and a part of the nature surrounding him. We feel the movement of their materials, the paint and brush, as they fiercely push it around before their hand might come to a halt, mirroring the evanescent changes of light, wind and temperature surrounding them. It is the locus of Being where nature is an active participant in the painting and the artist is an active participant in nature while Time seems to be directing their ‘play’.
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