Hadley Rampton
"Casting Shadows, " Oil Painting
2022

About the Item

Hadley Rampton's (US based) "Casting Shadows" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts red sandstone formations dotted with green foliage. Born in Salt Lake City, UT in 1975, Hadley Rampton spent a good deal of her childhood recreating in the Utah wilderness, the Teton/Yellowstone area and in Eastern Idaho and Southern Montana. In short, a love for the outdoors developed at an early age. When not playing in the mountains and deserts, she engaged in other loves; that of dance and visual art. Rampton studied Ballet from the age of four to fourteen years. At the age of nine, she enrolled in visual art classes at the Visual Art Institute. By the age of 12 she was figure drawing and painting in oil. During her senior year of high school at Rowland Hall St. Mark’s, Rampton studied AP Studio Art, receiving a 5 (highest score) on her portfolio. Upon graduating, she was awarded the George Fox Award for Outstanding Achievement in Fine Arts. Not surprisingly, Rampton knew it was Fine Art, specifically Painting and Drawing, that would be her focus of study as she enrolled at the University of Utah. Due to her high level of academic achievement, she was also accepted into the University of Utah’s Honor’s Department. During her junior year, Rampton studied for a semester in Florence, Italy, focusing on Studio Art and Renaissance Art & Architectural History. In 1999, she graduated from the University of Utah with an Honors BFA in Painting and Drawing and a minor in Art History. Rampton began painting professionally almost immediately after graduation. Although her subject of focus in high school and college was the figure (perhaps due to her love of dance), early in her professional career she was drawn to venturing outside and into the landscape she had always loved. There she has remained. Rampton works en plein air (in the open air) whatever the size of canvas may be, thereby combining her passion for the outdoors with that of painting. During the course of her career, Rampton has exhibited in several one and two person shows in addition to many juried exhibitions and invitationals within and out of the state of Utah, including Zion National Park’s Plein Air Invitational, Willard Art Center’s National Juried Competition in Idaho Falls, Utah Arts & Museum’s Statewide Annual Exhibition: Painting & Drawing in Salt Lake City, UT and Springville Museum of Art’s Annual Spring Salon in Springville, UT. She has been written up in such publications as Plein Air Magazine, Studio Visit, Western Art & Architecture, Fibonacci Fine Arts Digest and Judson’s Plein Air Journal. Her work is collected nationally and internationally and can be found in the collections of the Yellowstone Club, Big Sky, MT; the Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building, Salt Lake City, UT; Aspen Traditional Rehab, Meridian, ID; the Law Firm of Preg, O’Donnell & Gillett, Seattle, WA; Hutchison & Steffen, Las Vegas, NV and Jones Waldo, Holbrook & McDonough, to name a few. In addition to pursuing her fine art career, Rampton works as a Fine Art Consultant at Phillips Gallery in Salt Lake City, UT, serves on the Board of Trustees for Utah’s Repertory Dance Theatre and is a regular juror for the Utah Art’s Festival. Artist Statement Some tell me I’m crazy for painting in the mountains in the dead of winter, or for battling swarms of biting flies in summer. And yet, there I stand for hours, working, feeling there is nowhere else I would rather be. I’m energized by the challenges and beauty of nature, by the dynamics of light, atmosphere and temperature in the Rocky Mountains and in the deserts of the southwest. The changes in weather that occur while I’m painting do not bother but thrill me. A storm welling on the horizon, gaining momentum, and catching me in its fury is exhilarating. Even the same location can time and again leave me with a sense of awe. Some days I work with great energy, slapping paint with a palette knife, dripping turpentine and then pushing around the thinned paint or letting the drips create patterns of their own. Other days, I’m quieter, and my use of the palette knife is more controlled, as I attempt to honor the integrity of each stroke. I work on instinct more than thought, for instinct holds greater honesty and clarity. I begin by painting the actual scene before me, but as the painting progresses I delve into the personality of the painting, itself. A three way dialogue forms between the natural scene, the painting, and me. Which one speaks loudest changes from moment to moment, and, if any one becomes dominant for too long, the work can fail. It is the balance between the three that keeps me engaged. My paintings are a direct response to the environment and to my existence in it.

Creator:

Hadley Rampton

Creation Year:

2022

Dimensions:

Height: 16 in (40.64 cm)Width: 20 in (50.8 cm)

Medium:

Masonite,Oil

Movement & Style:

Impressionist

Period:

2010-