Installation to feature giant, realistic paintings that capture the West

Installation to feature giant, realistic paintings that capture the West

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

”Big Landscape, Big West” by California artist John Cerney is the new installation at Rice Art Gallery and will be on view Nov. 9 through Dec. 10.

The opening celebration will be 5:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9, with remarks by Cerney at 6 p.m. The following day, Cerney will give a gallery talk at noon at Rice Gallery.

COURTESY PHOTO

California artist John Cerney’s ”Big Baby with Tractors” was commissioned in 1998 to promote an educational farm in Goodyear, Ariz. The painting stands 20 feet tall and is indicative of Cerney’s work, which will be on display at the Rice Art Gallery Nov. 9-Dec. 10.

For 22 years muralist and sign painter Cerney has created giant, realistically painted, plywood people that appear in fields and on storefronts throughout his native Salinas Valley. In ”Big Landscape, Big West,” Cerney will seek to capture the sense of grandeur felt by tourists who first experienced the spectacular vistas of the American West. ”Big Landscape, Big West” is presented in collaboration with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) exhibition, ”The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890-1950,” now on view at the MFAH through Jan. 28.

Cerney’s installation at Rice Gallery will be the first time his large-scale work is presented indoors. ”I never cared about galleries and square things framed on a wall,” Cerney said. What mattered was ”that people would see my work, and that meant working outside.”

In a tribute to artist-explorer Thomas Moran, part of Cerney’s installation at Rice Gallery will be a recreation of Moran’s well-known landscape, ”Nearing Camp on the Upper Colorado River” (1882), painted on the gallery’s back wall. Moran, whose work is featured in the MFAH exhibition, accompanied survey teams exploring the American West in the 1870s. His paintings ignited the American public’s imagination and helped convince Congress to declare Yellowstone a national park. In ”Big Landscape, Big West” at Rice Gallery, instead of Moran observing and painting the Upper Colorado River, Cerney gives us a giant cutout American family experiencing the magnificent scene firsthand.

Cerney earned an art degree from California State University