David Mollett's Tanana River

Title: Tanana River

Artist: David Mollett

Medium: Fast Dry Alkyd Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: n/a

Date:

Description

David Mollett creates a work of art directly influenced by nature in his painting the Tanana River. The Alaska Range can be seen in the background, jagged, majestic and aged, covered with termination dust. The warmer ground below the range shows the result of cooler air flowing off the mountains, forming ground fog at the base of the mountains. The painting continues to draw you away from the mountains tops, into the boreal forest, across the winding river with sandbars filed with driftwood and bleached logs. The viewer is guided toward the large piece of driftwood in the foreground. Mr. Mollett uses bold lines in this painting,

The components such as the mountains, sky, ground-fog, trees, sandbars, and the winding river belong to on another. If Mr. Mollett were to remove any of these elements, the piece would diminish in quality; the title would no longer be appropriate as these elements truly define the Tanana River.

Interpretation

David Mollett moved to Fairbanks at the age of ten, attended high school here, and went to study at the New York City Studio School in 1970 and to complete his B.A. in Art at Reed College in Portland, Oregon in 1972. Known by the mid- 1970 's for his Fairbanks cityscapes, he soon began working in the hills and along the rivers surrounding the town and then moved on to the more dramatic scenery in and around Denali Park and most recently to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The strongly delineated forms, bright colors, and tight structuring of Mollett 's canvases have had a noticeable impact on the work of a number of artists who have accompanied him on his painting trips to ANWR in recent years. In Mollett’s Tanana River, the large log in the foreground appears to be content on its un-chosen river bank resting place, not wanting to move, happy with what river life has dished out. Sort of what life is like living in Alaska.