Tropical life drawn for "Drawing the Motmot: An Artist’s View of Tropical Nature" exhibit

By John Brandenburg Comments 0
Published: November 1, 2009
Modified: October 31, 2009 at 11:40 am

NORMAN — A show at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History lets visitors virtually walk in the footsteps and look over the shoulder of Debby Kaspari during her trips to a Panama island and the rain forest in Peru. Called "Drawing the Motmot: An Artist’s View of Tropical Nature,” the show contains pastel-graphite and ink drawings, annotated sketchbook pages and acrylic paintings.

A drowsy howler monkey sketched by Debby Kaspari.PHOTO PROVIDED

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ART REVIEW

"Drawing the Motmot: An Artist’s View of Tropical Nature”

→When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays through Jan. 18.

→Where: Sam Noble Museum of Natural History, 2401 Chautauqua, Norman.

→Information: 325-4712 or go online to www.snomnh.ou.edu.

It also contains video of the artist working, plus stills and video recordings of some of the wildlife sights and sounds she saw and heard, and a display of her portable easel and equipment.

A Panama broad-billed motmot with a fiery red head, vivid green body and long blue tail perches on a leafy branch in front of a rich orange background in Kaspari’s pastel-graphite drawing, "Tropical Heat.” Kaspari said in a gallery note that the drawing was interrupted, at least temporarily, when the bird flew off to nab "a huge cockroach.”

A pencil sketch captures the distinctive movements of two coatimundis, while saddle-backed tamarins (squirrel-like monkeys) eating spittlebugs remind her of "cappuccino drinkers in need of a napkin.” Even more intriguing is her pastel-graphite drawing of "Bacchus in Panama,” a long-limbed, red-haired spider monkey, dangling by its tail and one arm as it reaches for red berries with the other.

A spectacled owl blends into the blues, greens, grays and browns around it in her superb pastel-graphite drawing, "The Air and the Mood” — a fitting title since the artist looked down, and the owl was gone. Equally subtle is a slightly larger pastel and graphite over acrylic study of a bright orchid mingling and weaving "its yellow blooms … into the nearby leaves, vines, and branches” on the trunk of a mighty tree. "In the rain forest, visual riches grow on trees,” Kaspari commented of the masterful composition, done from field sketches on Barro Colorado Island in Panama.

Most commanding of all, however, is "Blue Rondo,” a large pastel-graphite drawing of a harpy eagle with a round gray face, perched on a branch and gazing back at us warily.

"With powerful feet and talons, sized for seizing howler monkeys, harpy eagles are off the scale for awesome, and into the realm of myth,” the artist comments in a gallery note.

"This is not an exhibition of scientific illustration,” a release said of Kaspari’s work. "It’s a personal record of how an artist sees, hears, and thinks when she wanders through a strange and unfamiliar world.” Striking a good balance between detailed accuracy and broader artistic concerns, the show is highly recommended during its run, which coincides with that of the "Darwin at the Museum” exhibit.

— John Brandenburg