Tahoe Art League selects local painter Tom Watts for spring featured artist event

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The Tahoe Art League, a 501c nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting fine art and art education in the Tahoe Community is holding a Featured Artist Reception where the work of Tom Watts will be introduced. The reception will be held on Friday, May 3 from 5 p.m. - 7 p.m. The public is invited to the event which will be held at the Tahoe Art League Gallery located at 3062 Lake Tahoe Blvd in South Lake Tahoe.

The event will highlight six pieces of Tom's work and light refreshments, and the artist himself will give a brief talk describing his inspiration and process. Tom’s paintings will remain on display from May 3 - May 31. The works include several wilderness-inspired pieces like Melancholy Brown, Fallen Leaf in Blue, Mighty Juniper, and Among Aspens.

Tom is a South Lake Tahoe-based representational painter who focuses primarily on landscape and wildlife art. He holds a BA in Art Studio from UC Davis and currently works for the same university as a product designer. By generous donations of his work, Tom has raised substantial funds for local public interest causes, most recently The Sierra Nevada Alliance and Fallen Leaf Lake Fire Department.

Tom spent much of his youth in the Tahoe backcountry, hiking his way around the lakes of Desolation Wilderness. He has also made several trips to the Rockies and Alaska for additional inspiration. He considers his art to be no more than his best attempt at tributes and devotionals to the wild things and wild places he loves dearly. Though he occasionally takes on grand compositions, the bulk of his work focuses on intimate and often colorful details of nature that others may overlook.

Tom was heavily influenced by early landscape painters such as Paul Brill and Gillis van Coninxloo, as well as the 19th-century photographers and painters who captured the wilderness of the American West. Albert Bierstadt, Winslow Homer, John Muir, and Ansel Adams all inspired him to throw on a pack and find the hidden places that he hoped to share with others.

To learn more about the Tahoe Art League and its upcoming events please visit talart.org. To see the entirety of Tom’s work please visit his website tomwattsart.com.