MORGAN HILL – Landscape artist and former Morgan Hill resident
Richard Ladasky is returning to South Valley with a show of his
paintings in a downtown shop.
”
Richard is a customer who became a friend,
”
said Wyatt Miller, co-owner of the Morgan Hill Tobacco Company,
which will host the show that kicks off with an artist’s reception
Saturday at 7 p.m.
”
I’ve since acquired a couple of his paintings.
”
MORGAN HILL – Landscape artist and former Morgan Hill resident Richard Ladasky is returning to South Valley with a show of his paintings in a downtown shop.
“Richard is a customer who became a friend,” said Wyatt Miller, co-owner of the Morgan Hill Tobacco Company, which will host the show that kicks off with an artist’s reception Saturday at 7 p.m. “I’ve since acquired a couple of his paintings.”
Most of Ladasky’s paintings are sweeping landscapes done with an abstract, minimalist twist.
“They really invite you in. They sometimes can be on the border of not being a landscape. They’re somewhat minimal,” Ladasky said of his paintings.
Ladasky is somewhat hesitant to classify his work.
“I try not to get too involved in all the art aspects. I’ve been described as a tonalist or colorist,” he said. “People have said I use the subtle colors of Georgia O’Keefe and the classic colors of Arthur Dove.”
Miller is more loquacious in describing his friend’s work.
“Art has to function at least of couple of levels. You never see Richard’s paintings the same way all the time; you just feel something different,” Miller said. “They’re not just landscapes – they’re more evocative.”
Ladasky’s work continues to evolve – as a few of the newer paintings in the upcoming show will demonstrate, he said.
“I’m some what bored with my expansive landscapes. I’ve brought the horizon closer to the foreground and I’m working with planes a little bit differently,” he said of his newest paintings. “I’m actually looking to get a more specific space than in the past.”
Miller is such a fan that he’s eager to share Ladasky’s work with the rest of South Valley. The show, which runs through Nov. 20, will feature 20 to 30 of Ladasky’s evocative, slightly abstract landscape paintings.
“We’re going to fill the walls (of the tobacco shop),” Miller said, noting that the paintings sell for $500 to $5,000.
Miller has high praise for Ladasky – some of which he included in the text of the show’s brochure.
“Faith in imagination and fealty in self expression, these are the unifying elements in Richard Ladasky’s work,” Miller wrote in the brochure. “With Ladasky, it is not a question of statement in art, there is no polemic; what you sense in these paintings is the sheer joy of unfettered expression.”
Miller showed the text to Ladasky, who was taken aback by the prose.
“He says to me, ‘You really believe this?'” Miller recalled. “I said, ‘You know Richard, I would never say a thing that isn’t true.'”
In addition to Ladasky’s artwork, Miller admires his friend’s wide-ranging interests and abilities.
“He’s a tradesman and one of the brightest people I’ve ever met. He’s modern-day Renaissance man,” Miller said, noting that Ladasky helped design and build the tobacco shop’s wine cellar. “He’s got a nice story, he’s a fascinating guy.”
Ladasky was in school to become an aircraft mechanic – a goal he achieved – when he met renowned abstract color field painter Robert Natkin. Ladasky – who says he “always painted and drew in my spare time” – became Natkin’s apprentice.
“Natkin told me that anyone who paints is someone trying to heal himself. But he was nuts,” Ladasky laughed. “When I worked for him I was really steeped in the art world.”
Natkin had a tremendous influence on Ladasky.
“Before I met Bob Natkin, I was working on being a fantasy illustrator. He really stressed going to museums and looking at art and understanding it,” Ladasky said. “I just started painting without thinking about it until I got a landscape painting that I thought was my own, not just a student painting.”
Ladasky decided the stereotypical artist’s life wasn’t for him.
“I decided I didn’t want to live the myth of the artist,” Ladasky said.
“I’m not trying to influence the history of art. Those sort of things don’t really don’t really concern me.”
For Ladasky, painting is a way to support himself – at least sometimes – while spending his days doing something he loves.
“It’s a freedom,” he said. “It’s great to be able to walk into a studio and put on music and paint all day.”
Ladasky, 52, who follows many manually intensive pursuits, has a passion to paint.
“It’s sort of moving zen aspect, where you get lost in the movement of the moment,” Ladasky said of the appeal of painting. “I need to use my hands.”
But painting isn’t the only way Ladasky uses his talented hands. He’s also a carpenter, a martial artist and an aircraft mechanic.
“I can build a house, I can put together a plane,” he said. “My whole life, I’ve always had this need to work with my hands.”
Ladasky was able to support himself exclusively by painting for about seven years. He now also works as a carpenter.
But painting, which Ladasky has done professionally for 30 years, is clearly his first love.
“It’s this need I have to create,” Ladasky said.
Ladasky’s paintings have been exhibited and sold in galleries around the country – his work is currently in the North Beach Gallery in San Francisco – and he’s delighted that his paintings meet his standards and bring pleasure to others.
“It amazes me that I can paint a painting that I like and other people appreciate,” he said.
Ladasky’s paintings will be on display at the Morgan Hill Tobacco Company, 17430 S. Monterey Road, from Nov. 8 to Nov. 20. An artist’s reception will be held Saturday, Nov. 8, from 7 to 10 p.m. For more information, call 776-7667.
