Kyle Ma has made a name for himself as an outstanding painter of one of the most dramatic and breathtaking natural spots in America – the Grand Canyon. It’s a pinnacle of his work and his career. Kyle took home the Grand Prize in the annual PleinAir Salon, along with a $15,000 check. His work will be featured on the cover of the print version of PleinAir™ Magazine.
The final winners of the 14th PleinAir Salon Competition & Expo (PACE) were announced May 19th at the opening ceremonies of this year’s PACE. Artists left with $50,000 in prizes. The winning paintings exhibit technical excellence as well as the less easily quantifiable but no less important element of the feeling a strong painting conveys.
Kyle Ma’s winning desert canyon painting.
“Painting, to me, is an extremely passionate experience,” Kyle says. “I paint as much as I can, and hope that I can communicate with the viewer what I saw and how I felt each time that I pick up a brush.”
Lisa Egeli, “A Moment of Clarity,” 30 x 40 in., Oil on canvas.
Lisa Egeli’s “A Moment of Clarity” took second place. At 30” x 40,” it’s an impressive and dramatic rendering, not only of the incredible Niagara waterfall, but of a sky captured just at the moment of clearing, when the gold light of the emerging sun glows past the backlit clouds.
About this painting, Lisa says, “Some years ago I visited Niagara Falls for the first time, and painted the view on location, from the Canadian side. This is based on that plein air study. Truly a spectacular wonder of nature.” Egeli won $3,000 and a feature article in PleinAir™ Magazine.
Deborah Tilby, “Winter Trees,” 36 x 24 in., Oil on panel
Third Place ($2,000) went to Deborah Tilby for her painting “Winter Trees.”
“I have always loved to draw winter trees,” she says, “the shapes of the branches, the patterns, the textures, all these things intrigue me. I recently started what I loosely call a series of paintings of winter trees and this is the second. My goal was to balance abstraction with reality.”
Our GRAND PRIZE WINNER, Kyle Ma, has a teaching video available from Streamline, as it happens. The guy paints a mean rose, and he shares his flawless technique in the video, Painting Roses with Kyle Ma.
