This month in the Tombaugh Art Gallery
In May, The Tombaugh Gallery presents Lyle K. West’s – “unsplintered,” life sized expressionistic self portraits. The exhibit, running from April 29th to June 1.
West’s self portraits are unique in many ways. He works in ways that fragment the image, either physically or conceptually, to create artwork that is evolving in time rather than being a static portrait. In earlier watercolors he used melting ice to push and drip the pigment in unpredictable ways. Some drawings were done as blind contour sketches from mirrors where not looking at the image adds a level of distortion of its own. Recently West began to collage his portraits from torn up watercolors, sometimes using as many as 27 individual paintings to complete a single work. His pieces are painted or composited on unstretched canvas hung from grommets. This adds a third dimension as the canvas buckles and bows. Newest works include actual built up three dimensional facial features. “This work symbolizes the ways I reinvent my identity to adapt to my constantly changing psychosocial and cultural environments. By shifting between multiple mediums I can explore fluid spaces that promote contemplation for solving problems,” West explains. West’s work connects with the viewer through universal themes of identity, growth, mortality and empathy.
West was born in Maplewood, New Jersey and moved to Conifer, Colorado at age twelve, where he resided for 22 years. He received an Associate of Arts degree from Red Rocks Community College in 2006 and a Bachelor of Fine Art from Metropolitan State College of Denver in 2010. He then moved to Las Cruces, where he is in the second year of a 3 year program at NMSU to earn a Master of Fine Art degree. Since his arrival, he has instructed four semesters of both the Drawing I and II courses at the school and is known for his engaging teaching style. He has also been recently featured in the “Art Focus” column for the NMSU newspaper, “The Round Up.” His work has been exhibited at the Auraria Library, Emmanuel Gallery, and the MSCD Art Gallery in Denver and the The Center for the Arts in Evergreen, Colorado, and at the University Art Gallery in Las Cruces, NM.
The Tombaugh Art Gallery is located at 2000 S. Solano and is open on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 10 am until 2 pm.
