African wildlife sculptures; the secrets of a master draftsman; Jackson mourns loss of wildlife painter

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

By Kate Balog

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Sculptor Bart Walter returns to Jackson this month for his solo exhibition at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. Walter is well-known for producing the graceful and iconic five bronze elk that stand in the front of the Museum to welcome visitors into Jackson from the National Park. “Wapiti Circle” was erected last September and is perhaps to Jackson as the French gift of the Statute of Liberty was to New York.

Walter’s solo show, which starts on Saturday, reveals his latest work done in the field of Africa. Wildlife was captured in many different forms during this trip with his wife and two daughters - studies of single creatures, family groups and animals in action.

Walter currently lives in Westminster, Md., and has had a successful 27-year career as an artist. He fell in love with the African continent during a visit in 1986. It was during this trip that he began to look at wildlife as a subject of his work, yet at the time he felt he was not skilled enough to work directly from life. He returned to the U.S. to study sketching live subjects and went back to Africa in 1997. Since then, the family has taken five more trips to Africa together.

“Many people ask me why I chose to work with my family,” Walter said. “I tell them that seeing the wildlife in their natural environments is such an amazing experience that I want to share it with someone. Who better to share it with than the people I love most in the entire world?”

Walter’s children usually accompanied him out in the field - unless the subjects were chimpanzees in Uganda or silverback gorillas in Rwanda. Once in Rwanda, high in the Varunga Mountain range, Walter climbed for hours and discovered a family of silverbacks relaxing. He couldn’t see more than one quarter of any of the gorillas so he circled around to approach the group from another angle. After walking on a game trail for a few minutes, he felt the vegetation around him quiver and turned to see a shock of black fur. The gorilla burst from cover and cocked his arm back in a threatening gesture. Then the gorilla retreated without striking. Walter knew he had his pose.

Along with the threatening gorilla, he has sculptures of running cheetahs, a hunting lioness and a running ostrich, but he says most of the poses are actually taken from quieter moments. The action shots posed a problem.

“Since sculpture is the art of 1000 silhouettes, I need many different views of my subject,” he explained. “I would fix a moment, a gesture in my mind, and then use the animal resting to capture the details.” When creating an image, he first sketches the creatures in charcoal on large pieces of paper, and then hand-molds a small wax model.     “The wax is cold and so I would pass it to my daughters to warm…in their hot little hands. Then they would pass the hot wax back.” He used a simple Leatherman to cut the strips and sometimes a stick as a tool for the canvasses.

After finishing the wax miniatures, Walter would take them back to his studio and work on the life-size enlargements, then take the enlargements to one of his three foundries in Colorado, Baltimore or upstate New York. He monitored the foundry’s lost wax casting process so closely that you can actually see the “true fingerprint fidelity” in the finished products. Lost wax casting is an extremely time-consuming, complicated and archaic process used to produce bronze sculpture that involves clay, rubber molds, silica slurries, kilns, sand, and air hammers.

The opening of “An Eye Toward Africa: The Art of Bart Walter” begins at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. Refreshments will be served. Opening remarks and lecture follow the reception. The following day, Walter leads the Museum’s Art Alive at 12:05 p.m. He will conduct a walk through of his show and tell the stories behind the pieces. Coupons for the Rising Sage Café will be given to attendees of Art Alive. The exhibition will be up through June 22.

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Master draftsman Michael Mentler will visit from Dallas next week to conduct a workshop in the Center for the Arts painting studio, beginning Jan. 16. Artists with all levels of experience welcome. Mentler will explore the same techniques and tricks of the trade used by Master draftsmen such as DaVinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Rubens for more than six centuries. During this workshop, demonstrations will be given, including drawing models in the mornings and individual instruction in the afternoon. Each day will begin with shorter poses - a few minutes - that progress into longer ones. Instruction will emphasize step-by-step procedures analyzing form and anatomical structure.

Mentler taught at Washington University for several years early in his career and he now teaches at the Society of Figurative Arts in Dallas, a private organization which he founded to provide high level figure drawing instruction for the beginner, amateur or professional. In addition to teaching, Mentler shows his work in The Pulitzer Collection, The Steinberg and The Mead Library.

To sign up for his workshop, “Drawing and Painting the Figure,” call the Art Association at 733-6379. The cost is $625 for members and $650 for non-members.

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Sadly and unexpectedly, wildlife painter Dharbinder Bamrah passed away on Dec. 29. The internationally renowned painter was only 42 years old. He had caught some sort of flu, did not eat or drink for a few days, had a seizure, and fell into a coma. While in the hospital in Pensacola, he regained consciousness a few times and would ask the nurses for a pencil so he could draw for them.

This was apparently the type of person he was. Meyer-Milagros Gallery made the announcement to the community and expressed condolence to his wife, painter Valerie Aune. The Meyer-Milagros Gallery featured his new work in September in a one-man exhibition called “Peerless Eye.” He visited Jackson during this time and painted a few pieces, such as “Grizzly Rush.”

Dharbinder was born in Kiambu, Kenya in 1965. His early childhood was spent in a remote part of Punjab in India on a family farm surrounded by nature. In 1976, he moved to England where he had his first solo exhibition at the age of 21 and later moved to Pensacola, Fla., in 2003 following his marriage to Aune. Dharbinder’s works have shown internationally from South Africa to Hong Kong, Canada, the UK, and the U.S.. He was a member of the Society of Wildlife Artists for the Nations (UK) and in 2004 he was elected a Signature Member of the Society of Animal Artists of America.
Dharbinder was self-taught but expressed tremendous technical ability.

He was known for his unusual composition and bold color choices. Meyer-Milagros Gallery has some of his paintings on display at 155 Center Street. Call 733-0905.

Courtesy Bart Walter
Bart Walter’s “Mother & Child II” (left) and “Striding Youth” (right), 2002. Bronze, 30 x 34 x 26 inches and 22 x 18 x 34 inches.

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African wildlife sculptures; the secrets of a master draftsman; Jackson mourns loss of wildlife painter | Planet JH News Article: Arts Beat

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