11/2018 Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine

Robert Lange Studios’ upcoming fine art exhibit, “Ephemeral,” features the work of the contemporary realist landscape artist Brett Scheifflee. “Ephemeral” is a series of oil paintings that capture fleeting moments in time, specifically focusing on the natural world.

“The show title that I have been working with and I think suits the work is ‘Ephemeral,’ as the paintings are focused on moments in the outdoors that are short-lived,” says Scheifflee. “When thinking back to what initially inspired me to become a landscape painter, I would have to say it was these temporary, but astounding, moments that made me want to go to work in an attempt to preserve them. Ultimately, I can’t help but feel grateful to live on a planet with billowing clouds at dusk, fragile moments where it seems the season is about to change, the slow rise of the full moon, or the lovely colors that bring us in and out of every day.”

Scheifflee has perfectly stopped time in each painting and chosen just the right moment to share with the viewer. One of the pieces for the show, “Pink Giants,” is a painting of dreamy pink skies filled with clouds; the horizon line fades off into the distance as the moon sits above the waves. The 24-by-30-inch oil on panel piece creates a perfect escape for the viewer. Brett says of the piece, “The painting ‘Pink Giants’ is a depiction of one of those evenings along the southern coast where the storm clouds have broken and are departing, but the sun has shone through again to illuminate the beautifully chaotic break up which hangs suspended under a full moon. It’s in these magical instances where I think everyone lucky enough to witness them becomes reverent and the stress of daily life also floats out to sea and you too feel suspended in the moment.”

https://fineartconnoisseur.com/2018/11/perfectly-stopping-time-brett-scheifflee/?fbclid=IwAR0Q7-_cpoKbJUjlav_T7AmpafDejxkxD16g-yniEnvJ68Y909cDRrnXIfk

For the Love of Gray, an upcoming exhibition at the Robert Lange Studios, features the work of the contemporary realist landscape artist Brett Scheifflee. For the Love of Gray is a body of paintings that chronicle the areas where Scheifflee has formerly lived, including the barrier islands and Lowcountry marshes, downtown factories to rural farmland in New England. Sheifflee’s series captures the unique quality of fog and mist at various times of day.

His painting style is a contemporary update of the American landscape tradition. This series demonstrates his ability to render the details of the landscape in which he is immersed.

One of the pieces for the show, “Line of Memories” is a painting of the rocky breakwater on a Sullivan’s Island beach; the horizon line fades into a soft gray. The 10-by-30 inch oil on panel piece appears to encompass an expansive vista as the waves break off in the distance. This exhibit is a celebration of the peace and mindfulness that exists in the natural world.

http://www.moultrienews.com/news/entertainment/for-the-love-of-grey-exhibition-coming-to-robert-lange/article_f7955a48-13d8-11e7-87da-d38e54e31d31.html

Earth’s atmosphere has such an infinite array of effects on light, diffusing and refracting it to produce vivid colors and muted tones. One contemporary landscape painter is poised to showcase his creative interpretations of fog and mist during a solo show that thrusts gray into a gorgeous spotlight.

From April 7 through April 28, Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, South Carolina, will present a body of recent works by contemporary landscape master Brett Scheifflee. Titled “For the Love of Gray,” the exhibition is Scheifflee’s painterly exploration of the unique qualities of fog and mist at various times of day. Principally captured in the artist’s former home, an area including the Barrier Islands and Lowcountry marshes, this body of work is not only a representation of the artist’s ability to meticulously render the details of the landscape in which he is immersed, but to do so with a rather limited palette.

“Like everything we make, desire precedes existence. It seems a love of the soft and subtle must have occupied the thoughts of artists for many, many years and we should be thankful it did, as we now have oil paints,” Scheifflee suggests. “There is no better medium a painter can turn to when they want to convey the subtleties of light, whether it’s the waking beauty of a foggy landscape, or northern light trickling in through an old Dutch house to find a pearl earring.”

The gallery adds, “Visitors to the exhibition are given a glimpse into the artist’s world and are provided with paintings that visually communicate the conjured emotions of Scheifflee’s explorative life. The featured paintings with their quiet and subdued palette, draw the viewer to take a closer look.”

https://fineartconnoisseur.com/2017/03/how-one-artist-finds-love-in-gray/

Two Top Realists, With a Difference.

Veritas - the Latin word for truth - is an apt title for the latest exhibition at Ann Korologos Gallery. It evokes the meticulous transcription of reality present in the paintings of both Sarah Lamb and Brett Scheifflee, yet these are not images that a camera could make. Rather, each artist brings a unique vision to the "real" world.

Brett Scheifflee earned a B.F.A. in illustration at Rochester Institute of Technology and now lives in Charleston. His tightly drawn, ostensibly straightforward landscapes are not quite what they seem, though; they carry a compelling charge - perhaps melancholy, nostalgia, or foreboding - so it is up to each viewer to "read" them.

Veritas Is Latin for?

Andrew Webster Reporting
Editor, Fine Art Today

fineartnewsletter@gmail.com

The theme of truth or true-to-nature has long been part of the traditional artistic vocabulary. “Veritas: New Realism” is a captivating look into contemporary realism through the eyes of two outstanding painters. Who are they?

“With keen eyes and a trained brush, a great artist is able not only to capture the scene in photographic specificity, but suggest a narrative by the careful choices he or she makes in lighting, objects, even textures,” says gallery owner Ann Korologos. Truer words have never been spoken, and the art world eagerly awaits the opening of “Veritas: New Realism” on July 8 in Basalt, Colorado.

Featuring the works of masterful realists Sarah Lamb and Brett Scheifflee, “Veritas” is a captivating display of realism from still life to landscape. Lamb’s well-observed still lifes offer the viewer the chance to meditate on the mundane — the subtle textures and nuances of small subjects. On the other hand, Scheifflee enjoys capturing larger scenes, such as vast landscapes, Animalia, and more.

“Veritas: New Realism” opens at Ann Korologos Gallery on July 8 and will be on view through July 28. To learn more, visit Ann Korologos Gallery.

Even though he’s still in his 20's and just barely at 29 years old, painter Brett Scheifflee finds himself looking back on stages of life from within his work. “I’m trying to make the paintings serve as both realistic landscapes or architectural settings and a mirror for somewhat ubiquitous memories that might comeback to someone at the end of life.” Scheifflee says. “I’ve kind of broken it down to three periods: images from childhood, young adult and full-blown adult, or to rephrase it, carefree, completely hopeful and humbled.” In regards to the childhood side of his work, Scheifflee adds, “I grew up in the country and had some unique friends, so we would do different things. I remember building a catapult to launch stones into a pond…We did activities that really put you into the moment and made it seem like that was all that mattered. With the new works centered on childhood, I’m trying to take the viewer into such a moment and be present within it." The artist grew up in upstate New York and spent some time in Colorado before moving to Charleston, South Carolina, where hetakes locations from his past and allows them to inform his current work, much of which depicts peaceful scenes in the country—rolling hills at dusk, farm houses under sheets of snow, and narrow vertical works that emphasize the land and how it engages with the limitless sky above it. In Ocean Side, he paints a red house, its roof pointing upward above a solitary window. In the sky above the house’s rigid fixtures of straight lines and right angles is a kite swirling in the unseen wind. “After moving to South Carolina I was immediately struck by the old architecture here. Coming from Colorado, the state is so young, that the apartment I had in New York was older than the founding of Colorado. There were a lot of cookie-cutter communities that came out of a mold—it was clean and efficient, but it wasn’t what I was used to,” he says. “Most of the houses along the coast here [in South Carolina] are these magazine masterpieces, but here and there, you can find an old one with a broken quality to it, almost like a tapestry. The city has been here awhile and seen several storms. It’s a product of time and taste and provided me some great opportunities for painting.” Scheifflee has firsthand knowledge of the city’s storms, including a big one that hit in October and flooded his home. His belongings, including finished paintings, were moved to a second floor, so damage was minimal, but the water and mud did remind him of the earth and its own respective stages. “The things I’ve been painting, I don’t know how else to paint them. I can be more expressive with the paint, but that’s not to say I would like to lose the details, because I like connecting the viewer to the reality of the scene,” he says. “I have been enjoying experimenting with that a lot, especially as I get more of the feel of the earth into the textures.”

UPCOMING SHOW PREVIEW / CHARLESTON, SC
December 4-23, 2015
Robert Lange Studios
2 Queen Street | Charleston, SC 29401
(843) 805-8052 | www.robertlangestudios.com
B R E T T S C H E I F F L E E
Time and place

Looking at one of 29-year-old Brett Scheifflee's quiet, peaceful landscapes, you'd never guess that his very first body of work was a series of technicolored, pop art portraits of old-fashioned candy. One of them, a painting of a huge swirly lollipop titled "Whirly," hung in one of The Vendue's first art exhibitions back in 2014.

The technique is excellent and it's a fun piece, but Scheifflee is glad to have left that behind. "It was kind of being inspired by modern art stars like Jeff Koons, and wanting to make something derivative of that. Feeling like your own experiences aren't good enough and maybe never will be good enough. I spent a year on that initial body of work, and at the end I didn't really know what it was about," Scheifflee says.

As all artists must, Scheifflee was simply going through the process of finding his own voice. The only difference is that usually, that work isn't good enough to merit inclusion in a major group show.

Today any work you see by Scheifflee, who now lives in Charleston and is represented by Robert Lange Studios, will make you think more of Andrew Wyeth than Andy Warhol. Primarily landscapes unsullied by human or animal presence, this young artist's work is contemplative and soft — it conveys a subtle love and reverence for nature's beauty.

This appreciation for the natural world is something Scheifflee was, in a sense, born into. He grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., where he spent plenty of time admiring the surrounding landscape. While he loved drawing from a young age, he only committed himself to painting while in college at the Rochester Institute of Technology, also in upstate New York, where he was "officially" studying illustration.

After graduating, he remained in the area and threw himself into painting. Yet while he'd discovered his medium, he had yet to embrace landscapes. "There's a little back and forth with painters between what they choose to paint and what chose them," Scheifflee says. "For me, it feels like I really couldn't escape my surroundings. I resisted. I took a little bit of time to realize that this kind of thing [landscapes] speaks to me, and I should just work with it."

He began painting the rolling hills, the gentle valleys, and the warm autumn colors of his native region, finding that doing so came naturally to him. And he was getting a good response to his work — people seemed to like it, and he was picked up by a gallery in Cazenovia, N.Y.

But after spending so many years in the Northeast, Scheifflee was ready for another landscape. He moved to Colorado, where he continued painting and found representation at the Ann Korologos Gallery in Basalt, Colo.

The Rockies, as they have for countless artists and photographers, provided Scheifflee with plenty of inspiration. His Colorado landscapes are as contemplative as the ones he completed in New York, but the scale is, naturally, different. The mountains are so huge that they necessitate a different perspective; in these, the viewer is often looking across a vast distance at the glory of those massive mountains. The view is more impressive than intimate, more awe-inspiring than comforting.

The colors, too, gave Scheifflee something new and different to consider. "The colors of the East compared to the West are so different," he says. "With the moisture in the air, things tend to be more subdued [in the East]. In Colorado, the sun would shine this bright, white-yellow, and when it went down the sky was this deep, star-riddled blue."

Those differences manifested in other ways as well. "There was a real psychological difference," Scheifflee adds. "If you climbed up the right trail on a quiet day, you could almost hear the mountains crumbling. Every time the summer ended and the mountains began to get that white snow on top, it got kind of stressful. You think, 'Are we going to be able to drive out of here? Are we going to be able to fly out?'"

These feelings of pressure are part of what prompted Scheifflee and his girlfriend to move. Today, he's a resident of James Island, where he's lived for the past year.

He's also started painting his first series of coastal landscapes. "It's flatter and a little less dynamic, for sure, than out West. It's more steady," he says. "I remember the first time we were on the beach here, the tide was high, and everything was so clean and combed over. It made me think of a hockey rink, when they drive the Zamboni over it with every wave, everything is just clean and new. I thought, 'Oh, this is why people live out here.'"

His upcoming show at Robert Lange Studios, Stages, will be his first solo show at the gallery, although he's been in several of their group shows over the past couple of years. Featuring 23 pieces, Stages will be the first show to include Scheifflee's new coastal paintings.

While locals will no doubt be pleased to see local landmarks, like the Morris Island Lighthouse, among the artist's works, for Scheifflee every landscape has its own very particular appeal. "I think it's impossible not to be really mesmerized by the land, and brought to a peaceful place by it," he says. "The job of the landscape painter is to bring out the moving, beautiful parts — whether they're obvious or not."

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/former-pop-artist-brett-scheifflee-finds-peace-in-mother-nature/Content?oid=5609717

21 under 31: Young Artists to watch | Brett Scheifflee

Published in Southwest Art magazine, August 2014.

Colorado

Art Education: I was lucky to study under some excellent professors at the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York, where I earned my bachelor of fine arts degree.

Creative Spark: Seeing a really great painting, either in the flesh or in reproduction, has always made me antsy to get to work and see what I can do.

Second-Choice Career: I’d like to say a surgeon, but I am to math what people are to the moon. I’m all in with painting!

Other Passions: Tennis. I am a fanatic, and I have fond memories of coaching a women’s NCAA team. Other passions include being outdoors and exploring the endless beauty of nature.

Best Advice Received: Sink in to who you are.

Pet Peeve: When people disrespect nature.

Mantra or Motto: Forget the sensationalism. The real glory is in the everyday nuts and bolts. Keep them well-oiled.

Favorite Studio Music: Audiobooks and podcasts. Painting can be lonely, and I enjoy learning and hearing other people’s stories while I work.

Favorite Work by Another Artist: Few art experiences compare to that of seeing paintings by Johannes Vermeer and Frederic Edwin Church.

Future Goals: To keep improving as a painter and to gain more success along with that.

Price Range: $500 to $10,000.

- See more at: http://www.southwestart.com/featured/21-under-31-scheifflee-b-sep2014#sthash.W7F9rjqz.dpuf

From East Aurora to Aurora, 25-year-old Brett Scheifflee has come a long way.

He grew up in the Buffalo suburb, vaguely inclined toward painting — his mother was a self-taught landscape painter — but he wasn’t sure what it meant to actually be an artist.

He enrolled in an art program at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2004 and quickly realized there is more to art than inspiration: small business training and personal scheduling; art history and art theory; training the eye and training the hand.

Shortly after graduation, Scheifflee heard from a classmate living in Aurora and decided to join him there.

“I needed to get away from my home turf for awhile and reconstitute myself,” he said. “Central New York is so different from western New York. It’s almost like a different state.”

He spent some time producing trendy pop oil paintings, but drifted away artistically. For the last two years, he’s focused on a new style of work — which earned him a solo exhibit in Cazenovia this month.

Scheifflee’s current paintings fall into two loosely related categories.

First, landscapes, many of them inspired by the area around his studio on the outskirts of Aurora.

Second, paintings that reflect unsettling elements of youth, self-image and finding one’s place in the world.

“A lot of young people are living in mismatched settings, and the idea of home has changed,” he said. “I view it as a kind of a new chaos coming.”

Those two themes — the natural world and young people’s uncertain sense of future — find common expression in central New York’s distant horizons, with mountains blurring in the distance.

“Sometimes things in the distance are more beautiful than what’s easily recognizable,” Scheifflee said. “In my eyes, that is coming to terms with the uncertainty of the path in the future. ... Maybe it’s OK that none of that stuff is worked out.”

He is showing 23 paintings at the Gallery of Central New York from until Nov. 30 in an exhibit called “Introducing Brett Scheifflee.”

He’s already shown some work there in larger shows, and has sold some paintings to collectors in the area.

Jennifer Schutzendorf, the gallery owner, said she’s most impressed by Scheifflee’s maturity.

“He’s really insightful about what he does,” she said. “His paintings are immaculately painted. ... Even though he’s young, I think, if he continues doing what he does and continues being an artist, he’s really going to take off.”

Scheifflee works with oil paints in intricate layers, something he feels helps bring out richer colors and subtler tones.

He works on them mostly in the mornings and late at night, and coaches tennis at Wells College in the afternoon.

As he’s grown, he’s learned to judge his own work more gently.

“You’ll never be happy if you’re after perfection,” he said. “It doesn’t exist.”

Scheifflee plans to move from Aurora this summer — possibly to the Hudson Valley but is comfortable with where he is artistically.

While living in Aurora, he said, “I got to a new place I hadn’t been before, with (art) that’s ubiquitous and still personal. I like that route; I definitely plan on staying on it.”

Staff writer Justin Murphy can be reached at 282-2237 or justin.murphy@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter at CitizenMurphy.



If you go

What: “Introducing Brett Scheifflee”

When: Runs through Wednesday, Nov. 30