Artist Statement

“Dal Poggetto’s paintings embody the vivid, close relation to the landscape of the American West that we can attain. They step past the picture window.”

— Mark Stevens, art critic, writer and co-author of De Kooning: An American Master

The archaic permeates our modern lives—we walk on the archaic; we drink it; we breathe it. It is necessary. It is landscape—sensuous, visceral, alive. As I walk the land known as Montana, something happens to my understanding of art history.

The Euro-American point of view breaks down, the iconic horizon dissolves. Parts, details, surprise from all directions and the circle of the horizon surrounds me.

Biography

Sandra Dal Poggetto was born in Sonoma, California, she now lives and works in Helena, Montana.

Points West No. 5, 2020, soft pastel, Blue grouse feathers on paper, 8.5 x 8.5 in..jpg

Points West No. 5
2020
soft pastel
Blue grouse feathers on paper
8.5 x 8.5 in.

“Sandra Dal Poggetto is reinterpreting the Western American landscape tradition through stunningly beautiful and deeply surprising means.”

— Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture

“Sandra Dal Poggetto is reinterpreting the Western American landscape tradition through stunningly beautiful and deeply surprising means.”

— Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture

“Dal Poggetto... builds her paintings around tensions, paradoxes and impurities—a truthful reflection of our culture’s complex relationship to the landscape.”

— Mark Stevens, Writer and Co-Author of De Kooning: An American Master, National Book Critics Circle Award and Pulitzer Prize Recipient

“Her colors reveal sounds, her marks tell us where she’s been, and in so doing she allows us to walk away with a taste of wildness.”

— Michele Corriel, Western Art & Architecture

“. . . mutual mimesis.”

— Zoe Larkins, Curatorial Associate, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver

“Dal Poggetto’s skills and fine-tuned sensibilities are evident in every stroke... Spontaneous but studied, organic but formally taut, the accumulations of gestures, shapes and layers... of colors and textures are locked into ineffably ‘right’ relationships, yet retain a refreshing sense of animation and spontaneity.”

— Gordon McConnell, Former Senior Curator of the Yellowstone Art Museum

“I think she’s the kind of artist who is making art authentically in her own time...”

— Ben Mitchell, Curator, Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture

“Sandra Dal Poggetto[‘s]... strong and sensitive paintings... [are] remarkable for their spare evocations of turbulence and search...”

— Kate Regan, Critic's Choice, San Francisco Chronicle

“...an artistic awareness of both Western and Eastern art forms, the large split canvases reveal an image of quiet cultivation and surprising kinetics.”

— Will Torphy, Artweek

“Through the rigor of her art, [Sandra Dal Poggetto] seeks to offer new ways of perceiving, and being with, this actual physical world we share. . . . these tender, expansive, unsettlingly gorgeous works create a poetic space—both spiritual and political—that can help us to live more fully.”

Rick Newby, from his essay, ”To Restore a Wealth That is Wild: Sandra Dal Poggetto's Immersive Art,” High Desert Journal, Winter 2022

Press

Essays by Sandra Dal Poggetto

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Primal Colors: Essay

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Wildtime

Tanzie #4 2005
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Duccio in the Eye of the Hunt: Modern Connections between the Chase and Art

Other Articles & Interviews

Targhee1

Landscape Art: An Interview

Screen Shot 2020-10-27 at 2.51.37 PM

Primal Colors: A Conversation with Sandra Dal Poggetto and Mark Stevens

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Illuminations

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Sandra Dal Poggetto: An Intercourse with Nature

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An Interview with Sandra Dal Poggetto

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Tensions, Paradoxes And Impurities: The Truth Of The Matter

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Listen to An Excerpt from Sandra Dal Poggetto’s Essay, Relict