Calvin deRuyter Exhibit
The Evansville Arts Coalition is pleased to feature work by visual artist Calvin deRuyter in the Gallery at the Evansville Art Center for the month of September.
As a Midwestern artist, deRuyter has been considered a Landscape Colorist for many years. Gradually he left behind his preoccupation with color for a growing fascination with line, shape, value, depth, texture, pattern, composition. His current work is primarily non-objective abstract in mixed watermedia.
Calvin has taught innumerable workshops and classes and has juried several art exhibits. He works out of his studio in Evansville, Minnesota from May to October, spending winters in Apache Junction, Arizona.
Let’s let the artist speak
ARTIST STATEMENT
“It seems that every artist must, at times, feel as if they are wandering aimlessly, grasping for something that seems always just beyond their reach. This is certainly how I felt when I first set out on my own mid-life art journey. I was attempting to paint traditional watercolor and found it frustrating and unsatisfying. My frustration — and the advice of a wise mentor — led me to break the “rules,” experimenting with nontraditional application of the paint…squeezing colors directly from the tube and mixing them right on the paper.
Leaving the palette behind also led me to a bold disregard of traditional color application. Often, I started painting with colors that were the exact opposite of where I wanted them to end up. Along the way, my paintings often went through grey stages before wandering back to
bright colors. I took great joy in playful color relationships and most collectors considered me a “colorist.”
In this colorist phase, my subjects were mainly landscapes in which I attempted to express how a place “felt” to me, rather than how it appeared to the eye. The landscapes became expressions of my “outer spiritual,” driving me to a place where my primary goal was to “paint the air.”
Gradually, I wandered from landscape to sky, developing an obsession with capturing the emotionality of clouds, from dark and angry, to calm and billowy, to shockingly intense in the setting sun.
The more I painted landscapes and clouds — my “outer spiritual” — the more I felt drawn to explore my own “inner spiritual.”
And so I set off on a new and winding path, exploring elements of abstraction and allowing them to transform my landscapes. Gradually I was leaving behind my preoccupation with color for a growing fascination with line, shape, value, depth, texture, pattern, composition. I am not done wandering, of course. Perhaps in the next phase of my journey, I’ll discover away to combine both my outer spiritual and my inner spiritual into something wholly new.”
Be sure to stop in to let your eyes feast on this most interesting exhibit. The exhibit runs from September 2nd through October 1st. Gallery hours are Fridays and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. with an Artist Reception scheduled for Saturday, September 17, 2022, from 1:00 to 3:30 p.m. The Evansville Art Center is located at 111 Main Street, Evansville, Minnesota.
Learn more about Calvin deRuyter and view other examples of his work on his website here
These activities are made possible by the voters of Minnesota through grants from the Lake Region Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage fund.