Daniel Coston’s “Arkansas, As Is” opened March 20th at Cantrell Gallery in Little Rock, Arkansas, and will continue through May 9th, 2015.  Cantrell Gallery is located at 8206 Cantrell Road, Little Rock, AR. Gallery hours are Monday ”“ Saturday, 10-5:00.  Call (501) 224-1335 for questions or directions.

You can view the entire show here.

Artist Statement

“This group of paintings primarily depicts the rural Arkansas landscape…as it is.  These are places that you can see driving about the state but the majority are from southeast Arkansas.

I never try to represent the rural scenery with a “halo.”Â  Always painting scenes with bright, golden sunshine glimmering off old home places wouldn’t seem true to me. Portraying a variety of structures with a range of seasons, weather, and conditions seems more appropriate and true to how life really is.  And whatever I come upon and see is fair game for my paintings. I enjoy painting fields, graveyards, historic churches, rusting vehicles, stores, cotton gins and a myriad other things with equal interest.

Sometimes I paint a scene “the way it was” but mostly, I’m showing how things are in the present. Satisfaction for me comes from including enough visual facts and clues to relate each painting to a specific reality (past or present), without being boring to the point of “just the facts, ma’am”.

Whatever memories my work evokes will be up to the viewer and no doubt will vary.  I hope to respectfully render the places where regular folks lived and worked and, just maybe, remind us contemporaries that those lives mattered as well.  Being aware of the past helps me evaluate the present. “

Dance of the Mulberries, Daniel Coston, 2015.   acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches

Arkansas Highway 31, Daniel Coston, 2014. Acrylic on masonite, 15 x 30 inches

Portrait of the Artist, Daniel Coston, 2015, acrylic on masonite, 21 x 21 inches

Honeysuckle Fence, Daniel Coston, 2014, acrylic on masonite, 21 x 21 inches