Jonnel Covault

"Elegant Shelter"  Linocut  28" x 20"  2010

"Fishing Willamette Falls"  Linocut  20" x 28"  2012

"Ode To Lew Welch"  Linocut  24" x 30"  2005

"River Waterfall"  Linocut  26 3/4" x 16"  2012

"Moment's Rest"  Linocut  12" x 15"  2012

I've wanted to post Jonnel Covault's work before, ever since I saw a print at a local charity auction. But the images on her website are just too small to convey the exquisite detail and patterning that makes her work so compelling. The images you see here are only slightly larger (and barely adequate). I would love to be able to show you a few detail shots. They were taken from her gallery in Portland, www.augengallery.com, where she has a show of work both old and new. It will be up until the end of the month. So if you're local to Portland OR, you should stop by. If not, the best you can do is watch the slideshow that first comes up on her homepage (jonnelcovault.com). The fade-ins and cropping make it hard to get an idea of the whole but you can begin to see the range of her marks, simple lines and swirls and hatch marks that manage to wonderfully convey the textures of land and water and sky. She does a lot of work depicting man made structures but her first and clear love is nature. For me personally, her most compelling work is her most minimal, when all she wants to show you is one simple idea; the delicate lacework of bare winter trees against the sky, or the rush and swirl of water over rocks. But regardless of her imagery there is no doubt that she has long since mastered this artform.