Brent comments: "When an artist comes to a new location, he sees with a fresh eye". Brent's paintings are somewhat realistic, suffused by a misty mood. Again he comments "They are what move me – the fleeting moments of the day".

Brent belongs to a group of relatively young landscape artists, dedicated to recording impressions of the environment, mostly based in the western states. Their leader is Richard Schmid, and the group includes Scott Christensen, Matt Smith, Clyde Aspevig and Kevin MacPherson. Brent tells me that his early art training was unusual. He grew up in a small town in Montana, then went to work on a ranch in Oklahoma, studying with the owner, Christine Berner, a plein air artist and sculptor, for two and a half years. The teacher opened Brent's eyes to painters such as Sargent, Sorolla, Moran, Bierstadt. While she stressed fundamentals, she also showed him the importance of the use of light and mood in painting. He became aware of colorist and tonalist painters of the Nineteenth Century and also the work of the early Californians.

Brent says he does not stick to one style, but has a range from which to choose for a particular subject. He has learned a lot from painting en plein air. He loves to paint and paints often, using smaller format canvases in the field to capture fleeting effects, and considers the camera a "valuable tool". Many of the scenes he paints are ones we have all seen, but they are not commonplace, with dramatic light that sets the scene apart from everyday, Brent's paintings conjure up a memory in the viewer who can identify with the scene, "giving a feeling of peace".

The artist is inspired by a "softness in the atmosphere". He is not just trying to paint the scene, but to capture the feeling that goes along with it. He harkens back to "a golden age of painting when artists did try to capture a mood".

Mo'omeheu Kahiko
Oil on Canvas