Horizons: a series of oil paintings by Tuck Contreras

for featured artist
Tuck Contreras

OIL PAINTINGS:

The River

* Horizons
(a series of 10 paintings)

Oaks & Sky

Sunset on the Klickitats

Looking East from The Dalles

Clouds & Oaks

Fractures
(a series of 9 paintings)

Greene with Blue Line

The Greene See

Boy with Sunset and the Sand

Sandstone and Tide

Historic Solana Beach

Storm Clouds off OB

project: Horizons

Sunrise in the Gorge. Oil painting on canvas, 7 x 11 in.

Horizons is a series of 10 oils on canvas, painted by Tuck in a six-month period spanning December 2005 through June 2006. Her Horizons series was on exhibition at The Dalles Art Center, 4–29 July 2006.

The series continues Tuck’s exploration in oils of the Columbia River Gorge.

Tuck explains her process as follows: “Since moving to Oregon, I have been exploring the formations, colors and textures of the awesome Columbia River Gorge. ¶ I began painting this series of Horizons in December 2005, and the pieces capture my different experiences of the local landscape through the ensuing months of winter and spring. I have also included two ocean-and-sky paintings in the ensemble: both of them familiar scenes deeply etched in my visual memory. ¶ As these paintings reveal, I often look to the horizon — that shifting line between sky and earth which is always so full of drama. Whether it is a mountain charging into the sky ... the ocean dragging the sky into infinity ... or a simple hilltop as trees climb into a stormy spring afternoon sky ... I am forever drawn to that line. ¶ I don’t feel alive when I can’t see the horizon.”