PUTNEY — “A Silent Language,” a show of paintings by Deborah Lazar, is on display at The Works Bakery Café at 118 Main St.
The Putney artist and photographer's subjects include landscapes, still lifes, and portraits, all executed in a style called impressionist realism, with an emphasis on color and brushwork.
Impressionist realism - “somewhat popular in the contemporary art world,” Lazar said - works on two levels. From afar, the paintings have a photographic quality, but up close the forms take on a more abstract quality.
Lazar has been participating in plein air competitions: juried contests that require painters to bring their tools, from their paints to their frame shops, outside to create paintings on the spot. She has been accepted for one such competition in Telluride, Colo., in July.
But in the studio, particularly for large pieces, she employs computer technology to compose her paintings from digital photos. She then paints using these electronic photo montages as reference.
“I can zoom in and see every detail,” she said. “You can see a lot more of the color variations.”
Painting in the impressionist realism style “is one of the hardest things you can do,” said Lazar, who names Richard Schmid, John Singer Sargent, and Anders Zorn as her primary influences. “You never stop learning.”