A Clyde Aspevig painting looks as if it were a picture of reality. Which it is, if you believe there is such a thing.
A stroke of blue paint alters the shape of the hill, the importance of the pond, and the dark passages in the middle of the forest. Painting is layer on layer of color, light, shape, relationships and thought. And what seemed real at first glance is as abstract as a Diebenkorn up close.
Painting, he said, is "a playground for the mind."
If you have the good fortune to be in Bozeman this week, there's a three day exhibition of Clyde Aspevig's paintings at the Emerson.
