Live Panel: Landscape Art Critiques

Oil | Acrylic

Charlie Easton comes from a family of British artists. He moved to Canada in 2006 and immediately fell in love with the same scenery that inspired many of the Group of Seven.

A prolific painter of landscapes and seascapes in both oils and acrylics, Charlie is represented by galleries across North America and Europe where he regularly has solo exhibitions of his work.

He is a Senior Signature Member of the Federation of Canadian Artists (SFCA) and has studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and at Emily Carr University.

His teaching is now in demand and in 2021 he will be on the faculty at the Plein Air Convention in Denver, Colorado.

Charlie has a studio in Vancouver, but his first love is painting on location in BC, Alberta, California and beyond. He has had residencies in Haida Gwaii, with The Haida Nation and Parks Canada, in Banff and in Whistler.

He is a proud brand ambassador for the Canadian outdoor brand MEC who help him get to the remotest places to paint, and keep him dry.

Click Here to learn more about Charlie

Oil | Pastel

My work has always been driven by three visual imperatives: the inherent abstraction within nature, pattern, and unified light.

A painting can reach a viewer in different parts of their mind. One part responds to things we can name like houses, trees, clouds, and the narrative itself. Another part responds to aesthetics such as color, shape, or movement. This is the part of the mind I want to reach. I consider a picture most successful when the viewer is struck by these aesthetics before they recognize the actual subject.

Color harmony is a core instinct for me. The landscape, with its atmosphere and unified light, is an ideal subject with which to pursue this interest. If I cannot make all the colors in the painting feel as if they are bound together through a  unifying color of light, then I will not consider the painting entirely successful. In my work, this cohesiveness often is often achieved with a very limited palette.  Each of my paintings also has a distinct color chord, which is meant to capture a  particular color of light or time of day.

In my current work, the Azure and Asphalt and Rooftops series, I bring my interest in unified light and pattern to the urban landscape. These works explore the abstract patterns formed by reflected light on the streets and rooftops at sunset. In these works I strike a delicate balance between simplification and detail: I have to include enough visual cues to make it clear to the viewer that it is an urban landscape, but few enough that it doesn’t distract from my primary interest, which are the abstract patterns and the light.

Click Here to learn more about Mitchell