IN HER NEW show at Deborah Colton Gallery, Belleville, Texas-based painter Lindy Chambers deploys abstract and impressionist techniques to transform pastoral scenes into technicolor landscapes you want to live in. Living the Dream, up now through Aug. 26, examines the overlooked aspects of life in rural Texas through vibrantly painted images depicting things like mobile homes, abandoned vehicles and street and farm animals.
The vibrant colors deployed by Colton in the paintings in the exhibition, which include cheery hues like acid gold and maroon and cerulean blue and rose, contrast the tenuous existence of the rural animal and human tenants of her canvases.
"Big Kids"
"Intermission"
"Sometimes you let things be"
"Resilience and optimism conquer meager incomes, happiness and peace replace the uncertainty of a former life," reads a statement from the gallery on the colorful new exhibition. "[Chambers] uses these bright colors to introduce a look into their lives. To see, learn and appreciate this dream in their diverse habitat."
Standout pieces in the exhibition include a piece titled "All Too Well" that depicts a vibrantly hued pack of multicolored sheep — in neon-hued yellows, greens, blues, reds and pinks — that appear to be cavorting around a tangle of branches decked out in equally bright hues.
There's also a more subdued piece, although equally bright in color, titled "Friends" that depicts a lime-colored trailer house with a junk-filled yard and several dog denizens painted in colors like blue and brown. The deployment of color by Chambers in the painting gives the scene a joyful and decidedly homey vibe.
"Chambers skillfully uses lines and shapes to both break up the vibrancy of the canvas and to imbue her compositions with a narrative power. The line work introduces a tension to the color as the objects of her focus appear to pop and the details of each scene defiantly catch the viewer's impatient eye," the gallery says. "It is in this way that her paintings elevate above mere depiction to offer a lesson in the observation and the message of positivity and hope for a better future."
The exhibition can also be seen online through the gallery's "Viewing Room."