New Exhibition! Arkansas: From the Tops to the Bottoms

Contemporary painter Daniel Coston’s ARKANSAS: FROM THE TOPS TO THE BOTTOMS opens May 12th at Cantrell Gallery in Little Rock, Arkansas, and continues through July 1, 2017.  The opening night reception for the exhibition will be on Friday, May 12, 6-8:00. Please join us! It will be a great opportunity to visit with the artist while viewing his works. If you can’t make it that evening, the show will continue through July 1. Cantrell Gallery is located at 8208 Cantrell Road, Little Rock, AR. Gallery hours are Monday ”“ Saturday, 10-5:00.  Call (501) 224-1335 for questions or directions. See the full exhibit here!          Artist Statement, Arkansas: From the Tops to the Bottoms “Every year as I work on a new collection of paintings, I try to visually depict my home state – a personal and visual “state of the state”, if you will. In years past, I’ve seen the paintings as representing a horizontal trip around Arkansas, as I search for striking scenes. I’ve been making the trip from the hilltops of Northwest Arkansas to the Delta flatlands and back again for nearly three decades and the landscape continues to inspire me. Recently I have grown more aware of the […]

Artsy Shark – Featured Artist Profile

Artsy Shark has a fantastic profile of my work this week, please check it out! What makes a place special, unique, memorable? The concept of “sense of place” is one that I’ve explored through my paintings throughout my entire career, while focusing on themes like isolation, abandonment, and decay. You can view my work at Cantrell Gallery in Little Rock, or on my website. If you’d like to inquire about a work or discuss a commission, please contact me!

Delta Rocket: Leaving the Past Behind

If it is a hot still day some where on the delta, a scene that will always catch your eye is a vehicle (it’s almost always a pickup) roaring along a dusty road just slightly ahead of a cloud of dust.  If it’s far enough away that you can’t hear it, the scene is all the more entrancing.  The pickup seems like a rocket blasting off for a space station when in reality it’s just heading for the nearest store. I have that overall idea in my head a lot of the time.  It is an iconic scene for the delta…any delta with crops in varying stages of growth.  It could be a pickup bumping along a turn row or blasting down a dirt road on the other side of a field.  If the weather is dry the dust will be deep and easily thrown up into the hot, still air. Some of these fields will have a family plot tucked away by a paved highway.  Maybe there will be a couple of trees.  If the tiny cemetery is really old the trees may be just stumps…or gone altogether.  So I put these two ideas together and liked the way […]

“Arkansas, As Is” Exhibition Now Open at Cantrell Gallery

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 […]

State of the Art Visit – Discovering New Artists

November has been a super busy month for the art studio here; Daniel’s been busy working on commissions and new paintings for 2015 shows. So yesterday we decided to take a break and go visit the new show at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art – State of the Art. You know, breathe in a little new art inspiration!