The Skeleton Trail 2014

Mark Maggiori painted "The Skeleton Trail" with what looks like oil paint on canvas. The artist is building his painting in layers, kind of like geological strata, the same way the rock formations in the background were formed. Check out how the artist has applied paint thickly here and there and also let it run down the surface in thin drips. It’s really interesting, the way he builds up the canyon with these brushstrokes, creating the rocky texture with a dry brush technique, almost like he’s scrubbing the surface. Then compare the sky, where the paint is much thinner, creating a hazy effect, which makes you wonder how the artist chose to apply the paint in each area. I’m reminded of Maynard Dixon, another painter of the American West, but Maggiori’s approach is more about the process itself, making the paint an equal subject of the picture. The artist uses the landscape as a setting to ask questions about painting itself. Like, how do we see, and what are we really looking at?