Glenn recognized his interest for art at the age of 13, however, he didn't realize his love for painting the landscape until his early 20's. His path became clear when he first saw examples of work by the Early California and Western landscape painters of the early 1900's. "Their work emphasized the importance of seeing the color of light combined with interesting compositions and seemingly effortless designs, while carefully observing the simple and basic characteristics of a specific location. It still feels like I'm at a magic show when I see work by those artists."
Basically a self-taught artist, Glenn has a passion and joy for discovering answers to the complexities found in the works of the past masters, in particular, the works of Maynard Dixon and Edgar Payne. "These artists painted things the way they were meant to be painted-- with a solid sense of form and broad stokes of clean, defining color." Glenn strives for quality in his work and uses the past masters as a standard to check his own work against. "The early painters incorporated good use of the principles of art to create high quality, aesthetic works that remain unrivaled even today---and they made it look easy." Glenn believes that their paintings also revealed a spiritual element to the landscape, which he feels should be the goal of the landscape painter. "The landscape is the tangible connection between man and God. It is a very humbling task---trying to paint the unseen qualities of a landscape as well as what is seen."
Glenn gained recognition in the art world at a relatively young age. At just 31, he has appeared in several national magazines including Southwest Art, Art of the West, and American Artist. Glenn has won a number of awards, including the first ever "Emerging Artist Award" presented by Art and Antiques magazine. He is also the recipient of the Grand Prize and Artists Choice awards at the inaugural Tucson/Sonoran Desert Museum Invitational.
Glenn paints outside, on-location throughout the Southwest, dividing his time between deserts, mountains, and coastal subjects. "To me, the West is home. There are so many places to paint, it would take a thousand lifetimes to paint them all." Glenn feels that time in the field and in the studio are equally important. In his studio, Glenn develops larger compositions worked from field studies and other references. After living in New Mexico for nearly 4 years, Glenn has returned to his native state of California, where he lives in the small town of Cayucos, on the central coast.
l.jpg "Photo of Glenn Dean")
