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Colby Sanford "Remembering Home"
Colby Sanford: Remembering Home
August 31 – September 21
Artist Reception: Friday, August 31, 6-9pm
Meyer Gallery Features Emerging Artist Colby Sanford in His First Park City Solo Show
Park City, UT (June 4, 2018):
Colby Sanford’s contemporary figurative paintings reflect moments from everyday life. Intimate interactions between the artist’s friends and family are interpreted with skewed perspectives, intriguing forms and a subtle color palette. His distinct aesthetic draws us in first with its clean lines, juxtaposed patterns and muted tone; we then resonate with the quiet moments depicted between father and child or husband and wife. For his first solo show at Meyer Gallery, the Utah artist layers romance and reality as he revisits childhood memories from summers spent at his grandparent’s home in northern Maine. “Remembering Home” opens with an artist reception on August 31st from 6-9pm.
Sanford’s grandparents lived a purposeful life. When they were young, they sold all their possessions and purchased a large plot of forested land in rural Maine. Here they built a stone house, lived off the land and were completely self-sufficient for decades. Sanford spent the summers here with his family; he remembers working with his grandparents on the land, foraging, picking blueberries and adventuring with cousins. This summer, Sanford returned to his family home with his own wife and daughter where he is creating his exhibition paintings for “Remembering Home.” In this body of work, Sanford contemplates the relationship between his romanticized childhood memories and his current reality, particularly as he watches his daughter partake in the same summer activities he enjoyed as a boy. To address this feeling of reality versus romance, Sanford has created an idealized framework for his current compositions. His panels are made according to the golden section, a 1 to 1.118 ratio. Sanford prepared these ideally shaped panels for his trip to Maine where he paints the reality of his experiences within their perfected frame. “In returning and living here for the summer I’m not changing my artistic process,” says Sanford. “I get the same everyday sparks that catch my attention and that I want to explore with a painting. It’s the same process but in a romantically charged place, and that changes things a little bit.”
Sanford’s exhibition paintings hold true to his aesthetic but with a broadened color palette that adheres to his new environment. Shades of green and yellow are carefully introduced to his subdued mood, which is typically cultivated with only four basic pigments. Sanford’s figures are also placed against outdoor backdrops due to his current surroundings, another break from his mostly interior scenes. His grandparent’s lifestyle had a lasting influence on Sanford, whose pursuit of his own purposeful life led to his painting career. Sanford currently attends Brigham Young University where he received the Visual Arts Talent Scholarship. His work has been exhibited across Utah including the Springville Museum of Art. “Remembering Home” is his first solo show in Park City.
Meyer Gallery, owned by Susan Meyer, was established in 1965 by Darrell and Gerry Meyer. Since it’s foundation as one of Park City’s premier art galleries, Meyer Gallery has grown to become one of Utah’s leading contemporary art icons. Located at 305 Main Street in an 1890 Historic Landmark Building, the gallery is committed to showcasing Utah’s exciting emerging talent as well as mid-career to established artists from across the region. Gallery artists work in a variety of mediums and styles, from contemporary realism to abstraction.
