In an age where pre-packaging and
pre-mixing perdominates, it is easy to forget that not long ago an
artist mined his pigments from the earth of his homeland. The pigments
to which an artist had access, their purity and the ways in which the
artist combined them, produced a palette as unique as the artist.
So it is with Henry Neubig, a Louisiana artist who adheres to that
honorable tradition. With pigments from the alluvial soils of his home
state, Neubig has created a distinctive personal palette that is
surprisingly rich in hues. The earthy delta browns and thundery blacks
you expect to see are there. What you don't expect are the delicate
pinks, the robust ochres, the primeval reds and the luminous greys, the
mauves, an almost unbelievable green.
Best of all, Neubig paints what he knows. What he knows best
is rural Louisiana. He appreciates it. Louisiana is his subject, his
message, and his medium. Summer is the season Louisiana has the most
of. Six months give or take a cold front or two. There is a lot of
summer in Neubig's work.
With warmth and charm and a good bit of grace, Neubig captures those
quiet,
fleeting everyday moments that just don't last: the right before times,
the right-after times, the right-in-the-middle-of-it times. Summer
times. You will recognize them all.
That too brief, exquisite time of a summer evening right
before dark when the water smooths out flat and shines like silk and
it's time to go home, go back to school, go back to work-- and nobody
wants to. Ever.
A single, elegant stem of summer blossom that will be gone
tomorrow. Or the day after. Empty rockers on the porch. A landscape
so serene, so perfectly composed as to remind you that someone planned
it, someone planted it to grow just that way--to remind you. The
decrepit old houses that should have fallen down, would have fallen
down--and surely will--but haven't yet because growing things and a
certain ramshackle tidiness proclaim them to be tended by loving old
hands. Homes. Now. if not forever.
Farms and farm animals as familiar as memories of recent days
when almost everybody--then everybody's grandparents--lived on farms.
Somewhere. Appealing in their attractive coats, their furs and their
feathers, the farm animals are doing pretty much what they have always
done. Scratching out a living. Observing the pecking order. Waiting
to be milked. Placid, as unconcerned as ever they were. Ordinary
scenes of ordinary farm life. Rare as hen's teeth. Today.
Neubig's knowing eye reveals Louisiana with eloquent
simplicity. He tells you about time and more. He reminds you that each
moment has value. No matter how small. How ordinary. How fleeting.
