Leon Sarantos Receives Award for Winter Woods Landscape

Winter Woods

Honorable Mention

 

I am especially pleased to receive an Honorable Mention award for my painting, Winter Woods, at the regional, juried exhibit:  Indigenous Landscapes: Imprints of the South Shore.  The Winter Woods painting was among six artworks to receive an award, with over 100 artworks on display.

 

This painting of trees in twilight was inspired by my experience of skiing in the Chicago forest preserves, which is a wonderful pocket of nature.  In this landscape, the trees in winter stand in stark brown against the pink twilight.  The palette is composed of an extreme gradation from light to dark color values.  Heavy lines running across the canvas create shapes by themselves that are independent of the scene being represented.  This adds an abstract quality to the winter scene.

Indigenous Landscapes: Imprints of the South Shore

This exhibit celebrates nature along the shores of Lake Michigan in settings that remain undisturbed since the times of the indigenous people of the area. It is part of Indigenous World, which is a year-long celebration on a worldwide scale of indigenous people and their culture, native settings, artwork, literary works and more.  The Center for Arts and Culture at the University of Notre Dame is leading this collaboration for the Great Lakes region.  This community celebration is an exciting series of programs, lectures and events conducted in collaboration between local higher education institutions and community organizations.

Sponsors for this regional exhibit include: the Center for Arts and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, White Ripple Gallery, and the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority.  Jurors included: David Detmer, Jocelyn J. Prue, Alex Schaufele and Ann Fritz.  

Where:   The exhibit is located at the W.F. Wellman Exhibit Hall at the Indiana Welcome Center, and continues until March 19.  The Indiana Welcome Center is located just South of  the intersection of I-80/94 and Kennedy Avenue South in Hammond, Indiana at 7770 Corinne Drive. We hope you come and visit.

The walls and roof of the exhibition Hall at the Indiana Welcome Center curve to evoke the waves on Lake Michigan

About The Indiana Welcome Center

The W.F. Wellman Exhibit Hall is a spacious venue within the Indiana Welcome Center.  The center itself is worth a visit for its intriguing architecture. As described by the center: “The building design encompasses some of the main, most memorable images of Northwest Indiana and uses them in the building language. The solution is as diverse as the community itself; its people, the natural environment, and man made developments.

The structure starts with the most dominant natural feature in our area, Lake Michigan. The large exhibition space is created with the form of stainless steel “waves” glistening in the sun. These waves crash into the undulating “sand dunes” which are juxtaposed to the industry; Steel denoted in the gray office form (second story) and the smoke stacks of the entry canopy. The natural terrain then rolls into the plains and farms, which is bordered to the south by the free flowing Kankakee river depicted in the south facade of the building.

From this, the composition has sculpted a structure that symbolically tells the story of the area, houses the necessary functions for the Welcome Center, and leaves one with an image unseen elsewhere.

Let us think of water, waves, sand dunes, industry, farming, rivers, and last of all, the people of our region. What we have is as unique and singular as the South Shore.”

 http://www.southshorecva.com/about-south-shore/indiana-welcome-center/