the faded red barn leans and warps.
Even captured in a still painting, the sense of motion, of slow collapse, reverberates through the image. Overhangs on the front appear in the process of falling apart. The stoic silo next to it even seems to slump.
Roy Boswell understood when he saw it that this proud structure, a testimony to the hard work of the farmers living near his parents’ farm, needed to be preserved.
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“I loved the barn and the state it’s in. It’s weathered and starting to go. It’s next stage is dilapidation. It’s unique, and it looks like it’s part of the world,” he said.
Boswell has approached his agricultural roots, and Indiana’s farming heritage, with a fresh perspective in a new collection of paintings. His Impressionist approach to the barns, fields, tractors and farms is bolstered with a more stylized and graphic-based style, creating a fresh look at a traditional subject.
The work makes up “Tilling New Fields,” an exhibit opening today at the Southside Art League gallery.
“Over the last however many years, it seems like there are fewer and fewer people with a farm background. But for most of Indiana, your parents or grandparents or people you knew grew up on a farm,” Boswell said. “It’s a connection back to the land. Things become more abstract the further away you are from it.”
Farming is in Boswell’s blood. He grew up on his family’s farm in southeastern Indiana. He recalled the toil and hard work that went into planting crops, tending to livestock, tilling fields and getting the harvest in.
The symbols of that lifestyle — weathered barns, battered tractors, strong and silent men and women who worked the land — are some of the most important to his life.
But the longer that Boswell has lived away from the farm, his memories of agricultural life become less crisp.
“As time goes by, I’m getting farther and farther away from it. I don’t want to say it’s just nostalgia, but it’s become more of a memory than a real thing to me. I haven’t driven a tractor for four or five years now,” he said.
His paintings in “Tilling New Fields” recall those memories. The focus is the Midwest farm, marrying the changing agricultural heritage with his own evolution as an artist.
“I like the idea of looking at the scenes and the farm motif, looking at it as more abstract,” he said. “This is a way to pay homage to it. It’s beautiful and I want to keep showing it, but I want to move in this new direction, so it’s marrying the two together.”
Boswell’s interest in art started as a young child, and he studied landscape architecture and design at Purdue University as an undergraduate. But it was during an internship, as he watched from his third-floor office the people walking around beneath him, that he decided that maybe formalized design in an office wasn’t the right path for him. He’d rather be outside.
So after graduation, Boswell started dabbling in art. Though he initially was drawn to watercolor, he found he was better suited for working in pastels.
For the past eight years, he’s been following that path.
“When I started out, I was kind of all over the place. I didn’t have a background in art, so I was kind of fumbling around with things,” he said. “But after taking a workshop, I got turned out to the American Impressionist camp, so whenever I go out and paint now, it leans towards a painterly realism.”
With his Impressionist roots, Boswell has challenged himself to incorporate abstract concepts and graphic elements. Most of the time, he has focused on painting en plein air, on the scene out in the landscape.
Increasingly, he’s started with an image or scene from the field, then moved to the studio to finalize the painting.
“It comes down to having an eye for the aesthetic and seeing what makes me stop and stare at things, looking for what I find beautiful. When I find it, that’s what really gets me excited and looking around at things,” he said.
In “Summer Glean,” one of the works featured in the new exhibition, Boswell painted his father driving a classic red tractor along the farm’s pasture grounds known as “the bottoms.” The landscape naturally was broken into the light-colored hay on the bottom of the scene, the blue-tinged sky above, broken up by lush green trees in the middle.
“What’s really attractive is, I was trying to get that abstract sense of the painting,” he said. “It’s really just a tractor sitting on a light with a dark band behind it.”
Another, “Say It Ain’t Snow,” depicts an old barn located outside of Franklin, rising out of shadows and dusted in snow.
“Who knows how much longer that barn is going to last? Any time I come across barns or tractors or some kind of equipment like that, I try to get it,” he said. “I’ve seen quite a few barns in the past few years that are gone now,” he said. It’s a nice memory for me, saying that I was there and saw it.”
“Tilling New Fields” will be on display through Feb. 27. Boswell hopes that people who see the work that he’s created takes some time to consider how important farming is, even if most people no longer have a hand in growing crops or raising livestock.
“I love Indiana. We have tons of different things that the state is known for, and farming is a part of that. But farming is really important to me and it should be on the radar of most people from Indiana,” he said.
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"Tilling New Fields"
What: A new exhibit of artwork by Bargersville artist Roy Boswell that focuses on the changing aspects of farm life as well as his own evolution as an artist.
When: Today through Feb. 27
Where: Southside Art League Off-Broadway Gallery, 299 E. Broadway, Greenwood
Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday
Reception: 5 to 8 p.m. Feb. 8
More information on Boswell’s work: royboswell.com
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