FROM BULLDOZERS TO PALETTE KNIVES: PIXIE GLORE’S ARTISTIC JOURNEY
-Steve Friesen=
Pixie Glore started out in the seventies as a poor hippie from Utah, driving around the country in a school bus. She then put herself through art school, driving bulldozers and heavy equipment on construction sites. Leaving the bulldozers behind and pulling herself up by her paintbrushes, Glore traveled the world, receiving recognition for her work. While living in Marbella, Spain, where she was billed as “la artista de la luz” or “the artist of light,” her work was exhibited alongside that of Picasso and Miro. Her work frequently depicted the places she visited, because, according to Glore, “as an artist you can’t help but be influenced by the places where you have traveled.” Today Glore is back in the Rocky Mountains, being influenced by and painting its wildlife.
Glore’s work has moved in new directions, making it unique not only when compared to her previous creations but also to the work of other artists. According to Glore, she has moved into a new world of expression and even emotion. “I am obsessed with it and can hardly sleep for thinking where it will take me next.” This passion has led her to create a new series of depictions of wildlife that is both refreshing and unique.
Like Carl Rungius, America’s foremost wildlife artist, Glore’s images of animals are clearly influenced by the Impressionists. Unlike Rugnius and the Impressionists, Glore’s latest work has moved into strikingly colorful, almost psychedelic, depictions of her subject matter. Looking at each animal she moves beyond its literal depiction and focuses on its musculature, discovering new colors that are not literal but seem to express the natural nature of the creature. Using the palette knife she lets the paint lead her into the animal itself. “I can’t control it, at great risk I let the paint make its marks.”
The thick layers of paint laid down by the palette knife allow Glore to achieve new creative techniques, similar to yet somehow different from those that she used in plein air landscapes created during her world travels. These textures give her wildlife portraiture a luminous dimensionality. As the viewer studies the animal, there is a feeling that the animal is also studying the viewer.
From working with heavy equipment to move earth to using a palette knife to arrange paint, Pixie Glore’s life and experiences have always been reflected in her artwork. Glore’s depictions of the animals of the Rocky Mountain West are the latest expressions of her journey as an artist.
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Steve Friesen retired after forty plus years creating exhibits and programs in museum. A former director of the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave, he now writes about art and artifacts for True West magazine.
Description from Portfolio Gallery:
Pixie Glore’s work reflects the adventure, power and beauty of the people and places she paints. Raised in the Western United States (Utah), often living in the country, close to farmers and cowboys, she developed a sensitivity that expresses itself in her work, be it through the colors of the desert or emotions in her portraits and figures. Every brushstroke carries with it the adventures of her many travels around the world from Papua New Guinea, China, the South Pacific, Africa, Asia, and Europe. She spent a year and a half in Provence studying in the same places as the
early impressionists, Cezanne, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, etc. She lived in Spain for l3 years and painted in the footsteps of Sorolla. It is obvious that the colors of these artists have infused themselves permanently into her work. Now, she searches for intimacy found in lost corners, deep forests, horses and always the strong light that permeates the West.