Modern Impressionism – Featuring Walt Gonske, Gregory Packard, & Clive Tyler

Join us as we bring together three of the country’s top Impressionistic painters!

Walt Gonske

Walt grew up in Irvington, New Jersey and, after high school, he enrolled for three years at an art school in Newark.  After that, he served for six months in the Army Enlisted Reserves and he worked at advertising agencies for a number of years in New Jersey.  After three more years of study at the Frank Reilly School of Art, he moved to the City in 1967 and free-lanced as a men’s fashion illustrator. During the winter of 1971 Walt flew out to New Mexico with his parents to visit his little sister, who was working at the Taos Ski Valley.  While checking out the many galleries in Taos and Santa Fe, he was thrilled to see so much representational art on the walls.  Walt began to wonder what it would be like to live in northern New Mexico, paint landscapes, and maybe even sell some.  That was about the time that fashion illustration was being replaced by photography, so it just seemed like the right time to try something new.

“My best work comes when I’m able to give up control, to trust my impulses.  Then the painting takes on a life of it’s own.  When I don’t know what is going to happen next, the process becomes full of surprise and wonder.”

Gregory Packard

Gregory expresses his love for the natural world in vibrant, richly hued landscapes, seascapes, and still lifes, especially florals. For a number of years his painting was characterized by a loose, traditional, wet-on-wet approach. A couple of years ago he began exploring another way of conveying this same sense of pulsating color and shimmering light. Using the broken-color method developed by Monet and other late-19th-century French Impressionists, Packard produces the effect of a single color by applying layers of paint and numerous hues side by side in short, thick strokes.

“When you’re close to something, like painting, you can’t help but correlate it with other aspects of life,” he reflects. “It’s how you see the world. I see the world through my family—my two children and beautiful wife—and painting. It’s all there.”

Clive Tyler

Clive R. Tyler studied Fine Art and Design at Kent State University and graduated with BFAs in both Graphic Design and Illustration. Painting with integrity and seeking the truth in subject matter, his classical oil painting style of composition is unique for soft pastel. His attention to light, value, and color theory allow his paintings to make an emotional connection with their viewers. Clive creates his inviting worlds with a mix of color harmony, pigment choices, soft and hard edges, and strong design concepts. In each piece, these elements come together with the goal of evoking a memory or desire within each viewer.

“I wish to share the outdoor experience that I have had with nature and my interpretation as an artist with a representational impressionist point of view. I am painting the experience, not a reproduction of the view.”