Clyde Aspevig

To see the work of an artist whose curiosity never flags is to see the visual manifestation of discovery.  Aspevig’s years as an artist cleaving to the land exemplify a recurring drive to arrive at the essence of something unknown, but significant, even as the artist’s ideas about that essence also evolve.  Nothing matters more than the land; yet, at the same time, the land is but a means to myriad ineffable ends.
 
There is “an immediacy in being in the landscape, absorbing its uniqueness, light, terrain, coloration … all inspire a reaction.”  His goal is that the viewer “search the canvas” and take away at least a glimmer of the sensation of being in that place.  Regarding this goal, Clyde Aspevig has an extraordinary gift. 

The world is full of landscape painters, but few convey an understanding of the deep structure of the earth, its unnamable colors, and its animating liveliness.  Few can paint the very air.

- Robyn G. Peterson