Groundsite Image Gallery
Thicket at Sesquicentennial, by Cody McLouth
Artist: Fine Arts, KU
Season: Fall
Medium: oil on panel
Height: 23.000"
Width: 23.000"
Keywords: Clinton Lake
Additional images:
My earliest experiences painting were from the landscape. Growing up in Missouri I always had an innate appreciation for big back yards, woods, and hayfields. Though I’ve known the Midwest landscape for many years, it wasn’t until I saw it under an academic light that I began to become responsive to the meaning of relationship between people and place. I’m fortunate to have participated in the Visage and Vista class for these privileges one doesn’t receive from within a traditional classroom.
My initial reaction to painting “en plein air” was one of skepticism at first. There’s always the fret of leaving the security of one’s studio for an environment that can be unforgiving. Yet, there’s an undeniable awareness that engages the participant—a heightening of all senses that thrusts a painter into the intersection between people and nature. Many times the experience has become so enthralling that half the discovery has come after-the-fact. In this way there’s very much a finding of self, a union with nature, and a redefined sense of grandeur within the Kansas landscape.
Cody McLouth