“Imperfect vessels making imperfect vessels,” muses oil painter Jeff Legg, reflecting on his penchant for painting the crooked piece of fruit, the frayed and stained bit of cloth, the weather-beaten copper urn. “The wabi-sabi philosophy, perhaps?”
If you talk art with Legg for any length of time, it’s likely that the concept of wabi-sabi will come up in conversation. A Japanese aesthetic that celebrates the flawed, the ephemeral, and the incomplete, wabi-sabi is an ideal framework for contemplating Legg’s subtle, exquisite, still-life oil paintings. In addition to portraying objects that are intriguingly imperfect, each painting depicts something fleeting: the petal about to drop from the flower, a pear at peak ripeness, a glass vase lit by a beam of momentary sunlight.
“Certain works of art possess that special element that is hard to describe,” Legg reflects, trying to pin down the ineffable. “I tend to think it’s something spiritual.
Jeffrey Legg (Colorado)
The Gathering
Oil
20″x20″
“This painting has elements that bring me back to my childhood, when I would catch all kinds of critters for closer examination. The world holds endless mysteries.”
Jeffrey Legg (Colorado)
Homage to Winter
Oil
24″x24″
“Winter blues were getting to me, so I decided, why not celebrate the cold and ice!”
