Artist Statement: “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 contrast of the scenes in the “mountains” compared to the views you have in the lowlands. That awareness found its way into these new works, a recognition of contrasting elevations and the unique views they offer.
The term “bottoms” is something I have heard all my life. Beginning in childhood, with an understanding that my grandparents lived on a hill compared to the creek bottom down beyond their house. To this day, I am drawn to various creek and river bottoms as we hike and travel. As a teenager I attended summer church camp in the hills around Searcy and loved being around the trickling brooks and big boulders, something I never saw as a kid in SEARK. Currently living in Fayetteville, I am minutes away from bluffs and hilltops as we enjoy visiting Devil’s Den, Petit Jean, and Mt. Nebo parks.
To me this show represents a blending, of intimate portraits and close-ups from “the tops to the bottoms” with my more traditional rural landscape work. It’s a perspective that I hope will continue to inspire and inform my future work.”—Daniel Coston
ARKANSAS: FROM THE TOPS TO THE BOTTOMS opened May 12th at Cantrell Gallery in Little Rock, Arkansas, and continued through July 1, 2017.