Four Corners would like to share this write up on Stephanie Amato in Southwest Art December issue.
We are pleased to exhibit her work in the gallery.

An eye for impressionism

If you aren’t already familiar with the works of Stephanie Amato, the first thing to know about the Georgia artist is that she paints fresh, fast, and loose. That’s true whether she’s working en plein air or in her studio, even when tackling her expansive seascapes. Amato tries to complete such pieces—which can measure up to 40 by 60 inches or larger—in just one or two sessions to preserve their alla prima energy . “I don’t want to overwork it,” notes the artist, who always has her plein-air studies on hand for reference. “I want to keep that looseness.”

Another thing to know about Amato is that she hails from the East Coast and moved with her husband to the Atlanta area only about five years ago. Adapting to the brighter landscape of the South was a steep learning curve, chromatically speaking, even for a practiced artist like Amato. “It took me about three or four months of scraping out my paintings; things were not looking right,” she says. So, studiously, she started creating color charts of her new surroundings. Now, she says, “I have viridian [green] on my palette. Everything has viridian here—the trees, even the sky.”

Amato enjoys a more flexible palette when portraying the southeastern coastline, where a variety of colors and temperatures can be found. But no matter where or what she’s painting, the artist seeks to capture strong value patterns—a top priority ever since she judged an American Impressionist Society competition a while back. In her initial review of around 900 entries, Amato realized the paintings that stood out most were those featuring strong value separations. “That was a big light-bulb moment,” she says.

It’s clear that Amato—a frequent participant in the prestigious Plein Air Easton competition—knows her stuff, even when it comes to portraying the figure. She studied figurative art years ago at Parsons School of Design, and more recently, she studied at the New York Academy of Art with figurative artist Mark Tennant, who emphasized accuracy in draftsmanship. That’s always been vital in Amato’s own works, though never at the expense of becoming too detailed. “I see beautiful drawings that are so intricate and say to myself, ‘I should do that,’ and then I’ll start doing it and go, ‘Oh, no,’” chuckles Amato. “It’s just not who I am.” —Kim Agricola

representation:

J.M. Stringer Gallery, Vero Beach, FL; Gardner Colby Gallery, Naples, FL; Four Corners Fine Art, Bluffton, SC; Evalyn Dunn Gallery, Westfield, NJ.

Click here for original article. By: Southwest Art