By Yvonne Wright • Studio YNW • The Current Contributing Writer
The abundance of picturesque architecture perched on the hills of Jim Thorpe, and enhanced by the richness of nature that wraps itself most generously around the town like an extravagant blanket of texture and color, regardless of the passing seasons, has inspired many visual artists to call Jim Thorpe their home.
Originally from Indiana, Ron Chupp of the Black Diamond Gallery, fell under the spell of this town’s atmospheric backdrop in the early 2000s, when he began capturing the fast flowing streams, cascading waterfalls and majestic old trees in a variety of mediums and with a passion of the newly-converted. Soon, the gallery’s walls on 31 West Broadway filled with a plethora of ink drawings, pastel sketches, watercolors and oils on canvas. However, Ron’s particular medium of choice, and a technique the majority of his recent works are executed in, is lithography – a traditional printmaking technique revered by many fine art artists, that is as aesthetically pleasing as it is difficult to master.
Lithography is a laborious technique introduced in Germany in 1796. A grease-pencil drawing created on a limestone tablet is later treated with a mixture of acid and acacia gum to etch the grease content of the image into the stone’s surface. Afterwords, the stone is washed, inked and pressed onto a sheet of paper to produce a lithographic print. Once a hand-pulled edition of the drawing is completed, the stone is cleaned and reused.
The Mauch Chunk Creek lithograph, hand-pulled by Ron Chupp off a Bavarian limestone block and printed on paper is the artist’s favorite work, because it depicts an area of the forest along the Switchback trail that he enjoys visiting, and where encounters with nature are most inspiring and nurturing to his creativity. Mauch Chunk Creek is a superb rendition of pencil strokes interwoven into a tapestry of black and white textures and grey tones best described as a mastery of lithographic articulation. The sensitivity of observation eloquently narrates the landscape’s depth of field, density of forestry and the subtleties of light piercing through the tree branches, while reflecting gently in the shimmering creek and the mossy rocks. One can almost feel summer breezes permeating the composition.
Ron is undeniably a skilled printmaker, capable of creating vibrant compositions by transferring onto the stone the most intuitive observations of nature, while at the same time perfectly controlling the lithographic process. “Lithograph is a medium that seems to lend itself to land-and-cityscapes” affirms the artist, “When I run across something that catches my eye, I can transform it later into art.”
The artist’s subject matter comes from the world that surrounds him. Trained at the Indiana University at South Bend, Ron oscillates between realism and non-representational genre, often privileging post-expressionist abstraction. Artist who inspire him most are: Vincent van Gogh, Edward Hopper, René Magritte, Salvador Dali, Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton and Maurits Cornelis Escher. Hinting at subtle ideas and clues incorporated into his compositions, Ron challenges his audience to be keen, analytical observers and encourages closer examinations of his works: “the closer you look the more you see, like nature itself. “
Represented by various art galleries in Indiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Ron Chupp has also successfully participated in many juried art exhibitions. To highlight but a few: The International Children’s Games in Cleveland, OH – part of the Olympic Village event during which President G.W. Busch visited, and Little Richard performed (2004); The Krasel Art Fair on the Bluff in St. Joseph, MI (2007); The Art In Bartlett in Bartlett, IL and the Art For the Mind in South Bend, IN (2008).
The artist’s numerous lithographs and pastel works have been awarded prestigious prizes: the Purchase Award at the Northern Indiana Regional Competition, held at the Museum of American Art in Elkhart, IN (2008); First Prize at the Park Full of Art in Griffith, IN (2006); Best of Show at the Art In Bartlett, in Bartlett IL (2006); First Prize at the Tinley Park Art Fair in Tinley Park, IL (2004); Best of Show at the 22nd Annual Carbon County Art Show, held at the Anita Shapolsky Art Foundation in Jim Thorpe, PA (2002). After winning the prestigious Dean’s Purchase Award in 1993, one of Ron’s silkscreen works has become part of the Indiana University at South Bend’s permanent art collection.
One can contact the artist at chewpea-art@peoplepc.com
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