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.

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Biography

Selected Solo Exhibitions
Visions West Contemporary, Montana Museum of Art & Culture University of Montana, Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, Yellowstone Art Museum, Oregon State University, Holter Museum of Art, University of California at Davis, Dana Reich Gallery, Peter Koch Printers, Montana State University, Billings.

Group Exhibitions
Atelier6000, PDX Contemporary, Missoula Art Museum, Plains Art Museum, Museo ItaloAmericano, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art.

Published Work
Dal Poggetto’s essays on the relationship between art and landscape have been published in academic and literary journals, and anthologized.

Residencies & Fellowships
Dal Poggetto is a recipient of the Jentel Foundation Residency, Helene Wurlitzer Painting Fellowship, Pouch Cove Foundation Residency, twice a Ucross Foundation Fellowship and a Playa Invitational Residency Award.

Education
Dal Poggetto received an M.A. in Painting and Drawing from San Francisco State University, a B.A. from the University of California at Davis, with honors in Art Studio, and studied in Italy.

Born in Sonoma, California, she now lives and works in Helena, Montana.

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“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

“Of all the first shows I remember seeing recently, the one that most knocked me out was Sandra Dal Poggetto’s... her work suggests that she is on her way to the kind of mastery that could easily put her on the covers of art magazines.”

— Jerome Tarshis, San Francisco Focus

Press

Landscape Art: An Interview with Sandra Dal Poggetto

By Sandra Dal Poggetto

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

By Sandra Dal Poggetto

Primal Colors: Essay

By Sandra Dal Poggetto

Illuminations

By Michele Corriel

Sandra Dal Poggetto: An Intercourse with Nature

By Zoe Larkins

An Interview with Sandra Dal Poggetto

By Brandon Reintjes

Wildtime

By Sandra Dal Poggetto

Tensions, Paradoxes And Impurities: The Truth Of The Matter

By Mark Stevens

Relict

By Sandra Dal Poggetto

Duccio in the Eye of the Hunt: Modern Connections between the Chase and Art

By Sandra Dal Poggetto

Listen To An Excerpt from Sandra Dal Poggetto’s Essay, Relict, on The Radio Program, Reflections West

By Sandra Dal Poggetto

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.”

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

Group Exhibitions
Atelier6000, PDX Contemporary, Missoula Art Museum, Plains Art Museum, Museo ItaloAmericano, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art.

Published Work
Dal Poggetto’s essays on the relationship between art and landscape have been published in academic and literary journals, and anthologized.

Residencies & Fellowships
Dal Poggetto is a recipient of the Jentel Foundation Residency, Helene Wurlitzer Painting Fellowship, Pouch Cove Foundation Residency, twice a Ucross Foundation Fellowship and a Playa Invitational Residency Award.

Education
Dal Poggetto received an M.A. in Painting and Drawing from San Francisco State University, a B.A. from the University of California at Davis, with honors in Art Studio, and studied in Italy.

Born in Sonoma, California, she now lives and works in Helena, Montana.

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

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