REFRAMING THE LANDSCAPE: LANNY DEVUONO AND YOSHITOMO SAITO
August 21-october 7, 2023
exhibition reception & Q&A with the artists: september 7, 2023, 4-7 pm
Nature is always mysterious and secret in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable
—John Ruskin, 1873
For millennia the landscape of the West has inspired, overwhelmed, provided for, and taken from the people who have lived here. Lanny DeVuono and Yoshitomo Saito delve into aspects of the power of nature from very different perspectives, one a macrocosm and the other a microcosm. DeVuono dives into the notion of water—limitless seas and massive oceanscapes—making the unfathomable comprehensible through intimate ten by ten-inch paintings. From the opposite end of the lens, Saito traverses the landscape through its tiny inhabitants: dragonflies, bees, and cicadas. He transforms the small and easily ignored intricacies of insects and branches into colossal but lithe bronze sculptures.
DeVuono’s horizon of paintings is a search for water on Mars. She imagines what oceans and rivers might look like on other planets in the midst of our own water conservation crisis on earth. Like Romantic-era painters of the 18th and 19th century, Lanny uses her own experiences of the California and Oregon coastline to fantasize how interstellar seascapes would look.
Yoshitomo Saito’s sculptures, video, and photographs are fanciful but tinged with moments of intimidation. Graceful wings are elegant and inspiring, while also referencing military drones and conflict. Beautiful, enlarged creatures also reveal elements of awe and power. These artworks were born during the Pandemic and reflect the artist’s complicated relationship with nature and the world around him during that time.
Yoshitomo Saito and Lanny DeVuono invite us to explore the landscape around us. Their art challenges us and asks us to consider our roles in conservation and land use—what impact do our actions have, physically and intangibly?
This exhibition is generously sponsored by CU Denver’s College of Arts & Media, with additional support from Michael Warren Contemporary and Jason Mehl Art
LANNY DEVUONO
Lanny Frances DeVuono is an artist and an art writer. In her recent series, Searching For Water on Mars, she is interested in the current privatization of space research and its historical parallels to past colonial explorations, as well as the implications of such research in the face of the current, fast changing and endangered environments of our planet.
She is an associate professor emerita at the University of Colorado Denver and has taught at Eastern Washington University, New York University, William Paterson, Rangsit University in Thailand and Trivandrum College of Fine Art in India.
DeVuono has received numerous awards for her work, including a Fulbright Fellowship, a Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship, a GAP Grant, and artist residency awards at Yaddo, Centrum, Jentel, RedLine, and Sitka, among others. Her work is in collections such as NW Museum of Art & Culture, Mills College Art Museum, Washington State Medical Center, Swedish Hospital, Jundt Art Museum, the Kent Justice Center, as well as private collections.
She also writes on contemporary art under the name Frances DeVuono and is currently writing for Third Text online. Past publications include: Art News, New Art Examiner, Arts and Artweek, Sculpture, Art In America, among others.
YOSHITOMO SAITO
Yoshitomo Saito was born in 1958 in Tokyo, Japan. After finishing his liberal arts college work and some professional training in glassblowing, Saito came to the United States to study glass art at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. He then relocated to the Bay Area in 1983 to attend the California College of the Arts in Oakland. At CCA, he studied glass under Marvin Lipofsky and sculpture under Dennis Leon and Linda Fleming. It was during this period that he began using bronze. Saito received his Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture with High Distinction in 1987.
Immediately after graduating, Saito began exhibiting his work at some leading contemporary art showcases in San Francisco receiving critical acclaims. Saito won the Visual Artists Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1994. And his bronze sculpture is included in many prestigious collections in the Bay Area such as the M.H. de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the City of Oakland Museum of California. He also has taught sculpture at the California State University Hayward (now called CSU East Bay).
Artist moved to Colorado in 2006 to pursue the lifestyle of fully engaged independent artist. He has been actively operating his private studio foundry at the Ironton Studios of RiNo Art District in the City of Denver.
Photographs of the artworks and opening reception taken by Tomas Bernal
Thanks to Michael Warren Contemporary for providing transportation of Lanny DeVuono’s artworks to the Emmanuel Art Gallery
