Claudia Hartley and Dyana Hesson will be reuniting at Bonner David Galleries on February 2, 2012, in a role reversal of sorts. Hartley, so well known for her colorful landscapes has used her move to the South to focus on creating cheerful interior scenes, while Hesson, mostly known for her botanical images, makes a foray into the world of landscape painting.
Claudia Hartley’s style has evolved over the years, leading to her newest works. During college, she experimented widely with abstracts. She later went through a time of painting portraits, using an impressionistic or realistic style, in oils. Yet, she missed strong, vibrant colors. Now, her love of Fauvist painters and their use of bright colors are very apparent, in her modernist paintings. She chooses to convey the love of her subject matter using exciting, bold colors in acrylics. When describing her own paintings, she says they are “happy, cheerful” and “intricate composition, [using a] large variety of colors and layers of patterns.” Hartley’s eye-catching creations of Southern interiors and stunning landscapes successfully convey her love for her surroundings, giving viewers the same chance to enjoy the world in which we live.
Dyana Hesson, known for her beautifully detailed flowers, will be showing her annual collection of conversation hearts, small paintings of roses named after the Valentine candy. Continuing with her love of nature and its beauty, she has recently begun painting landscapes, viewing nature from a different perspective. From the time she was young, nature has always been her love and inspiration. Plants and flowers were always a part of her life. “God’s creation is what inspires me” and it is the diverse and mountainous landscapes of the West she has fallen in love with. The oceans of California, red rocks of the desert and the mountains of Montana andColorado, all provide Hesson with ideal inspiration for her Western landscapes. She hopes her art can be healing and free us, for just a moment, from the complex lives we lead, reminding people of the beauty that constantly surrounds us.
