Bob Stuth-Wade: Painting in Earnest

For the last four years, Bob Stuth-Wade has used his vintage mobile studio “Earnest” to travel beyond his favorite Texas sites, painting along the coast of California, in New Mexico, Arizona, and across the country in North Carolina. In Texas he has continued his affection for Big Bend National Park and the Colorado River.

About the exhibition title "Painting in Earnest," Bob Stuth-Wade says,

“Incidental adventures color the intimacy of spouses living in a vehicle together. Earnest is a temporary home in the places I most love to paint. Sulphur Springs Fish Camp on the Colorado River feels more like home than our house in Dublin. Big Bend and Canyon de Chelly are the same. Standing or sitting at my easel in these places, there is a sense of sweet transparency. I become like the magnifying glass I held as a child that focuses the diffused light of the sun to a burning point. As an artist, I am a lens that focuses the diffused light of awareness and the beauty of this experience into a painting. That is painting in Earnest.”

In addition to landscape paintings, watercolors, and drawings, a series of shell compositions will be shown in homage to Morandi’s bottles. This series stems from Bob’s practice of beginning each day by drawing shells to sharpen his vision.

Bob Stuth-Wade’s self-directed art education began under his mentor, Dallas artist Perry Nichols, when he was still a student at Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas. "Painting in Earnest" is Bob Stuth-Wade's 10th solo exhibition at Valley House Gallery.

A comprehensive catalogue, with an essay by Rebecca E. Lawton, will be available.