REVIEWS

7/4/07 JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, STEPPING OUT "Riddell paintings capture light" by Kelsey Dayton Lee Carlman Riddell's show at Trio Fine Art is about finding the extraordinary within everyday surroundings. "Treasure Hunt: Looking for Light" is a collection of oil paintings featuring local landscapes. Riddell, who is married to photographer Ed Riddell, said it was her husband who really got her noticing light. "Light is around us all the time, even at night," she said. "Light is so basic to visual arts, painting and photography. It's a constant idea." "It is the moments when the light is extraordinary that I hope people start noticing," she said of the effect she hopes her show will have. Riddell describes her work as playful. "Painting is about light and it's about joy," she said. 7/4-10/2007 PLANET JACKSON HOLE 'B' is for 'busy week for art' by Susan Burkitt The challenge of painting, especially of painting the outdoors, is that light constantly changes. The sun lolls along its celestial course, clouds tumble and cavort across the sky, the wind rustles the leaves and grass, causing them to reflect and refract differently from second to second. How can you paint what you see when what you see is subject to so many variables? Lee Carlman Riddell knows the frustration. A plein air painter in the classic sense – she's been known to load a daypack with a few small canvases and tubes of oils, though she's also produced a few prize works across the street from her gallery – she has dealt first-hand with the challenges of ever-shifting light and come up with a few tricks to counter its wily ways. Painting on small canvases, for example. "You can cover it quicker," she said. Also they're more affordable and the viewer is compelled to get right up to them to really examine them. This week, Riddell hangs her new one-woman show, "Treasure Hunt: Looking for Light," at Trio Fine Art. The gallery will open the new show with a conversation Riddell titled "Inspiration, Editing & Imagination". Riddell has been influenced by art her whole life. "So you have that memory, you know what you like – liking to be outside, liking shapes and forms and colors – and then you're out and there are the Tetons, and what do you do on an eight-by-ten canvas? That's where editing comes in," she said. "And then there's imagination ... developing a visual memory for light and mood, so you see what's in front of you. Of course, how I see might be different for someone else. I like simplicity, for instance. What can I leave out? What's the minimum I can put in and still get the idea across?" 9/13/06 JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, STEPPING OUT "Time to open a 3rd Trio, write fall prose" by David Swift Impressionism looks easy enough. Gobby dabs from a speedy brush – it's all about what I feel, man. Most budding artists therefore opt for a technique that's impressionistic-ish. Strip away the hoity-toity Artist Statement, however, and frequently all you have left is moosh by someone who can't draw and who can only hope the color matches someone's drapes. Decent impressionism is in fact more difficult than representational painting. Like a caricature reveals far more about the subject than a portrait, impressionism demands that every gesture and hue reveal a truth. Which brings me to Lee Riddell, whom I have always known as a stellar graphic artist. Kerning, leading, negative space – Lee set the local standard. Therefore I am startled at how good Lee's new oils are, though not surprised. What's startling are the abiding contradictions that make art art, her austerity and playfulness, her bold quietude. Radial flares with a wide brush replicate a riot of blue flax; it's a downright jazzy scene. 9/6/06 JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, STEPPING OUT "New partner at Trio shows small paintings" by Molly Langmuir Lee Carlman Riddell, who has just become a partner at Trio Fine Art, came up with the name for her upcoming show in her sleep. She used a technique a friend, the writer Terry Tempest Williams, told her about, one Williams had been taught by her grandmother. "Right before you go to sleep, you ask your mind to think about something you are working on," Riddell said. "I asked my subconscious to come up with words for a title. When I woke up, the word migration was on my mind." Since July, when Lee came up with the show's title [Migrations...a painter's life], she has thought a lot about how the idea of migration relates to her art. "I work in pen, watercolor and oil," she said, "So I migrate from one medium to another. I also migrate between painting and writing." Riddell does not consider herself a writer, but she does love to write in her journals. In fact, she describes her paintings as being like little journals. She often jots down details on the backs, such as the date, what birds were out and the time of day she made the painting. Riddell has also just finished the process of migrating between galleries. Previously, she was represented by Jackson Street Gallery, but now that she is a partner at Trio, she will show her work there, althought not necessarily exclusively. "For me, painting was becoming kind of a lonesome thing," Riddell said. "This gets me back out with people." 9/6/06 JACKSON HOLE NEWS&GUIDE, FALL ARTS FESTIVAL "Trio's new partner shows landscapes" by Molly Langmuir For more than two decades, Lee Carlman Riddell hardly ever had time to draw. She and her husband, Ed Riddell, ran an advertising agency in Jackson for 23 years that kept them incredibly busy. The only opportunity Riddell had to make art was during the three-week canoe trips the two of them would take in the Canadian wilderness every other year. But they had always promised each other they would try something new before they turned 50. In 1999, they decided to move on and try for second careers. This summer, she became a partner at Trio Fine Art, a gallery started last year by three valley artists: September Vhay, Kathryn Mapes Turner, and Molly Martin Hirschfield. Riddell replaced Martin, who wanted to spend more time with her newborn daughter. All three partners at Trio have art hanging in the gallery. For this reason, Vhay and Turner wanted to find a third partner whose paintings would complement theirs. Vhay said choosing Riddell as Martin's replacement was an easy decision. "She's very creative, both in business and with her paintings," Vhay said. "She is also very professional and thoughtful in everything she does. And you can see that in her paintings." Vhay complimented Riddell's sense of design, which she attributed to her background in graphic design. "Her sense of color is also really incredible," she said. Riddell described her paintings as being like little journals. She often jots down details on the backs like the date, what birds were out and the time of day she made the painting. This often turns out to be the evening. "It's my favorite time," she said. "The light's at a lower angle and it warms up all the colors." "Sometimes I'll go out [during the day]," she said, "but only if there are thunderstorms. For me, a bad weather day is if it's warm and there's blue sky." 8/30-9/5/06 PLANET JACKSON HOLE "Riddell shares love of nature at Trio" by Scott Woodham Five years ago, Lee Carlman Riddell and her husband, Ed, got out of the advertising business. Since then she's been working steadily at painting. At long last she's ready for her first solo exhibition ... at Trio Fine Art ... where she recently became a partner. Riddell says she's nervous about the show – understandable, given the depth of her passion. "It's such a part of yourself that you put up on the walls," she said, "but I'm doing it because it's what I love and it's good to share." Riddell feels a social responsibility and loves giving back. She is donating part of the show's proceeds to wildlife and nature groups that care for animals and open spaces. Her landscapes come from a lifetime of being outdoors and seem born of great intimacy. Her small canvases avoid panorama to dwell on the delicacy of moments, often micro views of macro-scapes that her husband jokingly calls "painting landscapes through a spotting scope." Reviews in "Stepping Out" and the "Fall Arts Festival section" of the Jackson Hole News&Guide are ©Jackson Hole News&Guide, all rights reserved, used with permission. Reviews in "ArtBeat" of Planet Jackson Hole are ©Planet Jackson Hole, all rights reserved, used with permission.