The Edgewater Gallery at the Falls in Middlebury presents a stunning collection of oil paintings by Scott Addis for the month of July. With bold brushstrokes and a refined color pallet Addis brings nostalgia to life in his paintings of familiar local scenes which are sure to resonate with anyone who has spent time on the back roads of Vermont. His current body of work shares glimpses of Middlebury, Sharon, St. Albans, and other New England locations, capturing the road less traveled, and the sprawling fields, barns, and farmhouses along the way. Several panoramic paintings, up to 48 inches long, emphasize a glorious expanse of sky and space. A traveler can wander for miles within each landscape with just their gaze, arriving at a destination that can only exists in the mind.
“Breakthrough” by Scott Addis
Originally from Pennsylvania, Addis explores the Vermont countryside with great interest, along with his ancestral roots that connect him to the area. As a youth, Addis first became interested in the allure of the natural world while on hunting excursions. He found the meditative process of sitting quietly in the woods, waiting, and listening to be incredibly powerful. As a young adult, Addis joined the U.S. Navy, eventually settling in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he took classes in drawing and composition and taught himself to paint.
Addis presents iconic representations of rural life with a painterly quality that offers each painting as both an image and an experience: light caught in a net of branches the moment before sunset, the heavy press of a sky about to rain, a memory of place, an open inquiry, an invitation to explore. He likens his artistic process to that of “a curious kid, looking at the world with wide open eyes” in the hopes that the viewer will approach his paintings with similar freedom and intrigue.
“Dreams Gone By” by Scott Addis
The paintings offer the viewer a chance to take time in the moment. His style is inspired by Tonalism, a progressive American style of painting that emerged in the 1880s. The essence of Tonalism is the sense of atmosphere that is felt within a landscape painting, favoring feeling and mood over hyper realistic representation. Tonalist paintings forego a narrative in order to cultivate an organic relationship between the perceiver and the perceived.
As an artist it is important for Addis to emotionally feel what he is painting. By pouring his own emotion into the way the paint is handled, Addis opens the opportunity for the viewer to access their own emotional experience through his artwork. Addis says his “paintings are an expression of mood or emotion within a design that allows a window in for people to see what they want or need to see.”
“Sweet Corn” by Scott Addis
These beautiful paintings in an exhibit titled “Sweet Corn” are on view through the month of July, with a reception on Friday, July 13, from 5:30-7 p.m. Edgewater at the Falls is at 1 Mill St. For more information visit edgewatergallery.co or call 802-458-0098.