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Photo / Robert Cole
There’s more to explore in the Sierra Nevada than its hundreds of miles of trails. While you’re sure to find plenty of pinecone paintings and wooden bear statues, Tahoe’s art scene is evolving with new galleries and more artists creating modern interpretations of the stunning landscape around the basin. From jaw-dropping fine art photographs of iconic scenery to mixed media mountainscapes, circle the lake to take in the local art honoring the region.
Twilight and Rust Fine Art Gallery
It’s not hard to snap a beautiful picture of Lake Tahoe’s famed teal waters. In fact, Emerald Bay ranks as one of the most photographed locales in the world. So to stand out as professional landscape photographers in Lake Tahoe, Jonathan Thompson and Robert Cole go the extra mile (or ten).
“We’ll go up to the top of mountains in the winter and sleep up there in 12 degrees and capture sunset, the Milky Way at 3 in the morning, sunrise, and then come down,” explains Thompson. “Rock climbing gets me out to a lot of places that other photographers don’t go. I’ll scout a location and know what I want in my mind and will not settle until I attain that. Some of the visuals in my portfolio have taken me over 10 years of waiting for the right conditions.”
One of Thompson’s best-selling images, “Elemental Alignment,” features vibrant fall-colored trees covered in a fresh coat of snow around Emerald Bay, a unique collision of seasons. Similarly, Cole’s photographs show an intimacy with the land where he was born and raised. One such image is shot directly above a snowy Fannette Island, which is striking against the deep cobalt waters of the bay and the island’s shadow.
At their South Lake Tahoe gallery, Twilight and Rust, Thompson and Cole display their photography, which can be purchased in a variety of sizes and materials, including limited-edition images framed with back-mounted lighting for added illumination.
4000 Lake Tahoe Blvd, Suite 32, South Lake Tahoe, California
http://www.twilightandrustslt.com
Lynn Neuman Art
Growing up close to Lake Michigan, Lynn Neuman always had a close connection with water. Afternoons spent playing in her backyard creek as a child turned into a passion for painting the movement of water she’d spent so much time observing.
“Since I moved to Tahoe, all of the water on my hikes — the streams, waterfalls and lakes — has inspired this body of work,” explains Neuman. “When I’m going to go on a hike, I want to seek out water. I love the sound of it, the movement over the rocks, all of it. It’s very special.”
Using acrylic and oil, Neuman masterfully captures water cascading over boulders, carving across granite slabs and snaking through meadows. Often considered a difficult subject to paint, for Neuman, who often sets up an easel to paint en plein air, it comes naturally. It only makes sense that the biblical meaning of her name is “waterfall,” she adds.
On most days, a flag outside her Tahoe City studio alerts passersby that she’s painting and open for visitors. It’s also where she teaches beginning and intermediate oil painting. Private appointments are available for viewings, too.
3090 N. Lake Blvd Suite 2, Tahoe City, California
Chickadee Art Collective
After 23 years of teaching, Nicole Stirling decided to turn her summertime art side hustle into a full-time gig.
“After teaching through the pandemic, I was ready to make a change, and I knew that I needed a space to sell my art on the North Shore,” says Stirling, who noticed a gap in the market for local artisans.
In 2021, Stirling opened Chickadee Art Collective in Kings Beach where she sells her own intricately painted mandalas and beadwork alongside work from dozens of local artists and makers.
“We carry everything from original paintings and prints, to jewelry, ceramics and glassware. We have woodwork, apparel, beadwork and resin art. We have bath and body products. We have pressed-flower sun catchers. We have a little bit of everything,” explains Stirling.
The colorful shop, which also offers adult and youth art classes, is the perfect spot to invest in an original piece of art or a small handcrafted souvenir.
8428 Trout Ave, Kings Beach, California
Melhop Gallery °7077
What began as a brick-and-mortar gallery in Zephyr Cove is now a roving series of art installations around the region. Melhop Gallery °7077 opened its doors in 2020 and saw an influx of visitors starved for culture and experiences during the pandemic. But two years later as the world began to open back up again, owner Frances Melhop, who previously ran the St. Mary’s Art Center in Virginia City, saw things slow down.
“I decided to go nomadic,” recalls Melhop. “I decided to think sideways about the whole art industry and take the artists’ work into spaces that were more relevant to what the actual practice was all about.”
The first stop? A former opium den in the basement of the 1878 Old Chinese Herb Shop, now HSH Interiors, in Truckee.
“The artist is Miya Hannan, and she basically is thinking about the transition between life and death. The tangible through to the intangible,” explains Melhop. “She draws with the soot of a candle. Her easel is suspended above her head, and she’s drawing from the soot coming off the live candle. I just felt like that really resonated with that space.”
Other exhibitions have been held at the Truckee-Donner Recreation Center and the Bristlecone Gallery at Western Nevada College. An upcoming show will explore different artists’ perspectives on incarceration at the decommissioned prison in Carson City.
Browse the work of the artists that Melhop represents and find out about upcoming pop-up exhibitions on the gallery website, http://www.melhopgallery.com, or on Instagram, @melhop_gallery.
Piper J Gallery
“We like to say it’s a fresh take on Tahoe art,” says owner and artist Piper Johnson of her eponymous gallery. “We tend to gravitate towards artists that are slightly unique where it feels like it’s not something you’re going to see everywhere.”
The Truckee-based gallery is brimming with fine art inspired by Tahoe’s natural environment and beyond, from impressionistic pastel pieces of waterscapes to abstract mixed media pieces and sculptures. A new exhibit focusing on two artists is debuted each month.
Johnson worked for over 20 years as a hairstylist — her first creative canvas, she says — before committing to her passion for plein air painting full-time.
Though the fine art offerings in the region are still limited, Johnson hopes to grow the community and continue pushing the envelope on what’s expected in a mountain town gallery.
10250 Donner Pass Road, Truckee, California http://www.piperjgallery.com
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the Winter 2023 edition of Tahoe Magazine.
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