Exhibits & Events | Past Events

March 17 – May 7, 2016

Opening Reception
Thursday, March 24, 2016
6:30 pm to 8:00 pm
Cabe Hall, Regional Arts Center
321 4th Street, Texarkana, TX 75501



Once owned by the Lennox family and now entrusted to the Nature Conservancy, the pristinely preserved Lennox Woods allows visitors a glimpse into the past. Thick with virgin timber and rare and endangered plant and animal species, its rich ecosystem is a bastion of biodiversity in a region where such environments have often suffered at the hands of human interference.

Deborah Paris first discovered Lennox Woods in 2011. “When I stepped into Lennox Woods I knew I had come to a place that is unique and special,” she remembers. Since its inception, the project has blossomed from a singular exploration into a multidisciplinary endeavor comprising Paris’ paintings and drawings, a full-color catalogue, a documentary directed by Texas filmmaker Allen Phillips, a series of artist talks at Galerie Kornye West, and additional lectures and educational events hosted by Fort Worth’s Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT).

Paris spent her time in Lennox Woods immersed in its multifarious flora and fauna. She looked, listened, sketched, and photographed in every light in all four seasons, intent on building a body of work indicative of the forest’s life cycle and unique verve. The resulting exhibition will include more than fifty paintings and drawings inspired by the artist’s remarkable journey through the ancient place she terms a “living museum.” The collection will present a cohesive picture of Lennox Woods throughout the year in varying media, from large-scale oil paintings showcasing the forest’s quiet light and terrestrial energy to smaller drawings focusing on singular elements within the eclectic environment.

Kindred spirits with such nineteenth-century American artists as the Hudson River School’s Thomas Cole and Tonalist painter George Inness, Paris embraces the land as a live, sacred entity, seeking to capture both its physical beauty and spiritual awe. Like her Hudson River School predecessors, she relies on intense observation and field sketches to reveal nature’s inherent majesty. Also taking up the mantle of the Tonalists, she produces a sense of ethereal intimacy, harnessing the spiritual qualities of the wilderness. Paris achieves such lifelike and transcendental effects by employing age-old glazing and blending techniques to create layer upon layer of luminous ambience, at once dreamlike and naturalistic. In this manner, she conveys the true essence of her subject matter to evoke the sublime.



Biography
Deborah Paris is an American landscape painter. Her moody, tonal paintings reflect an intense, intuitive connection to the natural world and its rhythms. She has been featured in American Artist, Southwest Art and The Pastel Journal. In December 2004 she was named an Artist to Watch by Southwest Art Magazine. Her work has been shown at the Laguna Art Museum, the Albuquerque Museum of Art, the Panhandle-Plains Museum, the Gilcrease Museum, and the Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Based on a foundation of intense and close observation, drawing, memory and imagination, her work is produced using indirect painting techniques such as glazing, scumbling, and velaturas to produce luminous works full of mystery and mood.

Since 2006 her work has been featured in three books, Landscapes of New Mexico and Texas Traditions (Fresco Fine Art Publications) and Plein Air New Mexico (Jack Richeson Art Publications). She is represented by galleries throughout the US and the UK.