Vicki Andersen and Neil Andersson have more in common than a last name (albeit one that’s spelled differently between the two artists). Although they differ from one another in style and media—Andersen prefers to use acrylics, while Andersson usually paints with oils—they share a mutual interest in exploring the relationship between color and light within their respective artworks.
“My work and Neil’s are very different, but we both are involved with the colors we see and the way the light affects them,” said Andersen, a Lompoc resident and founding member of both the Cypress Gallery and Gallery Los Olivos.
The latter gallery is currently showcasing Andersen’s duo exhibit with Andersson, aptly titled Color and Light. The show premiered during the first week of March and is slated to remain on display through the end of the month.
“The pieces I chose for this show represent some of the things I love to paint,” Andersen said, discussing her colorful landscapes and still life pieces featured in the exhibit. “If I paint it, I’ve most likely been there, and I work using my own photos as reference.”
A self-described Air Force brat, Andersen traces her penchants for both traveling and painting to her youth. She was 16 when her stepfather gave her a set of oils for her birthday. Although the medium helped jump-start Andersen’s passion to paint, she eventually switched to her aforementioned preference—acrylics.
“I usually paint in acrylics because they dry so quickly and I work very fast,” Andersen said. “I can do the same thing in oil but I hate how long it takes to dry.”
Andersen went on to study commercial art and illustration at Cal State Long Beach, where she graduated with a BA in 1969. She came to call Lompoc her home in 1979 and hasn’t left since.
“I’ve enjoyed being part of the great art scene here on the Central Coast,” said Andersen, who continues to support local galleries and currently serves the Lompoc Mural Society as its project administrator.
“Vicki Andersen has a wonderful color sense—perhaps more intuitive and, in a way, more playful and inventive than mine,” Andersson, also a Lompoc local, said of his exhibit partner. “She tends to like bolder contrasts of light and dark and more intense color.
“My color aesthetic is more subdued,” he continued. “Maybe because I’ve spent so many years in the Pacific Northwest, which is, most of the time, more cloudy and grayish.”
For Andersson, choosing to organize the exhibit around color and light—as captured and depicted through the “personal, aesthetic filters” of the two featured artists—was a no-brainer.
“For me, color and light are the two most important elements that come into play in landscape painting,” Andersson told the Sun. “Starting with impressionism, artists have been fascinated with ‘capturing the light,’ which means looking at the way the sunlight affects the way objects look.
“One of the most challenging but fun things for plein air painters to do is to try to judge the degree of light and dark and color of objects, and to represent that in a painting,” he added.
When it comes to plein air painting specifically, Andersson will occasionally complete a piece over multiple sessions, returning to a location again and again to finish a painting, as he did with Santa Ynez River at Solvang—previously on display at Gallery Los Olivos during its New Perspectives exhibit in February. That piece is one of his personal favorites of his own oil landscapes, so Andersson decided to bring it back for Color and Light.
“I like the ‘sketchy’ quality. If I can achieve that in all of my paintings, I’ll be very happy,” Andersson said. “Most of the time my paintings appear to be fairly realistic—that is, I don’t do a lot of altering the shapes or placement of objects. I’m more interested in the overall ‘atmosphere’ of a landscape and the way the objects are tied together in a tapestry of light and dark and color.”
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood is feeling lit. Send comments to cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 11-18, 2021.