Horizon Lines: Anthony Lee, Matthew Lee, and Sowgand Sheikholeslami

Horizon Lines brings together landscapes and landscape-influenced artworks by three Memphis painters: Anthony Lee, Matthew Lee (no relation), and Sowgand Sheikholeslami. Working independently west of Memphis in Arkansas, along the corridor of US Highway 61, the artists have each created bodies of work showcasing the unique characteristics of the region. The flat topography of the Delta allows flaming sunsets, cottonwood and bald cypress trees, the Mississippi River, and the aging remnants of industrial architecture to come together near the horizon line, the place where the human eye perceives the meeting of land and sky.

Horizon Lines features fascinating visual connections, repetitions, and variations emerging from three distinct responses to the same Mid-South environment. Anthony Lee melds his experiences growing up in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands with the Mississippi River in his River Coral series. Derived from observations of sparsely-built architectural structures interacting with the horizon, these abstractions combine shapes and colors taken from the natural environments of both Arkansas and the Caribbean. Matthew Lee’s plein-air oil paintings render the land more representationally with an emphasis on light, atmosphere, and the passing of time. Painted on site in fields, on the riverbank, and near old agricultural buildings, these works suggest the immediacy of direct experience and what the artist calls “a different kind of beauty.” Sheikholeslami’s rapidly drawn watercolor, gouache, graphite, and oil sketches of “lonely trees” and defunct cotton gins demonstrate a new direction in her practice. They are images that have direct connections to what she calls “THE place” (i.e., specific locales in Arkansas) rather than just “some place” interpreted from her memory or imagination.

Organized by: Dixon Gallery and Gardens