Arts & Entertainment

Animals Abound in April Show at Phoenix Village Art Center

"Witness" by Laurel Wood Ramsden runs in April at the gallery.

Editor's Note: This article was written by James D. Fitzgerald and was submitted by Phoenix Village Art Center. You can reach James at jimfitzart@yahoo.com.

Artist and painter Laurel Wood Ramsden’s work is featured through April 29 at This is an exceptional event by a local artist whose art has matured into what I would describe as a cultural treasure.  

Ramsden’s show, “Witness” is an exhibit of gentle sensibilities, depicting animals or species beloved by the artist whose sympathy for their struggle in this world has become her zeitgeist, image and subject matter.  In the words of Barnett Newman, "Anyone can learn how to paint; the problem is what to paint." Ramsden knows how paint and what to paint. 

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The artist has 40 handheld sized, nicely framed oil paintings in the show. Her focus is intense, her application didactic, somewhere between the outlined gestures of Vincent van Gogh and Tiffany stained glass. So, quite a few of these pieces approach the iconographic. Her surface is Andy Warhol; you can see all of the canvas tooth under the paint.  

Color is bright pure and saturated and the settings are filled with brilliant high contrast tropical light and defuse backyard atmosphere. Squirrels scurry about in a flowered dogwood tree, her cat sits in the flower garden, an intrepid skunk lulls on the patio, often with her own "signature" mouse as humorous anecdote in the setting.

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In her larger tropical pieces Ramsden’s draftsman's ability waxes supreme. Take for instance the bat cave painting titled "Cenote.” Check out the incredibly adept drawing ability in how she composed the bats in their niche, rendered in an intense and powerful focus. Tropical birds, a monkey and an alligator are all depicted with penetrating visibility. The eye is detained, entertained by a plethora of complex forms, but in a hierarchy and vibration, which does not tire the eye like so many photo detailed artists are prone to do. With all of Ramsden’s surface clamor, her art remains surprisingly simple and direct.  

"Witness" is a poetic acknowledgement of the extinction of species in our world. However, Ramsden’s attitude is nowhere caustic—quite the contrary. This art is cheerful, celebrating life, no matter how precarious their/our situation.

Give all the corporate, conceptual (now traditional and prosaic) art form stunts and antics a brake. Take in a human being's personal perspective through a representational "painting" on a canvas whose well-adjusted nature is sensible and right. A Laurel Wood Ramsden painting would grace any home or gallery.  

I have known Laurel for a little over a year, and I consider her one of the "best finds" of 2011.  Come by the Phoenix Village Art Center where a local renaissance is going on and enjoy the serious, dedicated and most pleasant art/oil paintings of Laurel Wood Ramsden.


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