Solitary Prairie Life: Paintings by Ronald George Straight
Kindred Spirits, oil on canvas
Ronald George Straight grew up in various locations in the Canadian prairies before moving to Vancouver. The artist returned to painting after a long hiatus and now creates works that portray solitary prairie life and landscapes.
I really enjoy the color scheme that Ronald seems to utilize a large number of his paintings. The deep reds and oranges make every scene appear to be occurring right at the brightest part of sunset, giving figures and landscapes a dramatic flair. The artist’s scenes don’t tend to include human subjects, though animals and birds are ever-present. Ronald chalks this up to a multitude of time spent alone during his childhood, giving the paintings an added sense of conceptual depth.
Ronald's online painting portfolio
Ronald tends not to paint fully detailed backgrounds, though he doesn’t rely completely on abstraction or negative space. As discussed in our previous feature of Ronald’s dramatic, polished paintings, the artist often creates partial landscapes, then uses geometric lines and planes of color to draw the viewer’s eye across the work.
