There’s something beautifully wrong with artist Luke Watson’s oil paintings. His landscapes are lush with pointy turquoise trees, wet with exquisitely violet rivers, and overgrown with paper-maze-like foliage.
Watson grew up in Utah, where he explored desert and mountain, stone and water. He calls on memories of these real-life details to create idealized, surrealistic ecosystems of bright, folded paper. He illuminates his fake forests and imaginary mountainscapes with a light kit, then paints portraits of these not-quite-otherworldly vistas.
“I imagine these as symbols of real plant life,” Watson says. “I’ve created habitats that are made up of plants that don’t really exist, but they have natural, accurate lighting. The lighting is probably the most important part of the process, and it’s what makes these seem like a normal landscape when you first look at them. It’s the lighting that gives the feel of reality, even though they’re fantastical, manufactured environments.”
Watson has always drawn and painted, though when he was small, his parents weren’t sure a career in the arts was a great idea.
“But then one of my teachers told them that art students can get scholarship money for college,” Watson recalls, “and they were like, ‘In that case…’”
Post-grad school, Watson is teaching color theory and figure drawing at Mesa Community College, and looking for more time to create his own art.
“I have more ideas about things I want to paint than I have time to paint them,” he says with a sigh. “What keeps me going back is always the lighting. I want to get the lighting right. If you make the perfect painting, then what’s the point of doing another?”
– Robrt L. Pela
Paper objects
“Most of what I paint can’t be found in nature, so I have to make them out of paper before I can paint them.”
Giant Paintbrush
“My friend gave this to me, and I’m terrified to use it. I love it, but I don’t know how I’d clean it once I got paint all over it.”
Gamblin Oil Paints
“I worked at Gamblin for eight months, and I think I took home more paint than paychecks.”
Wooden Sticks
“I attach paintbrushes to these, so I can stand back from a large painting and make a huge mark all the way across.”
Light Kit
“I’m OCD about my light source. It has to be perfect before I start a painting.”
