Opening Reception for "Land Valuation: Luke Watson"

From the luscious panoramic landscapes of the Hudson River School to Maynard Dixon’s and Grant Wood’s stylized pastoral scenes of the Midwest, American painters have long shaped a romantic vision of the land. These images helped construct a narrative of the United States as expansive, untouched, and waiting to be explored—a myth reinforced by tourism imagery, National Park postcards, and idealized travel photography. Even as people moved through these spaces, human presence was visually minimized or reduced to symbolic figures. Yet the land has always borne evidence of habitation, use, and intervention—from ancient tools to scenic pullouts and ATV tracks. This tension between the idealized landscape and the lived landscape raises ongoing questions about perception versus reality, and what it means to love, occupy, or lay claim to the land.

In Land Valuation, Phoenix-based artist Luke Watson repositions the human experience at the center of the American landscape. His paintings depict scenes such as tire tracks cutting across desert earth, a birdwatcher standing in a parking lot, or a small, intimate rendering of an endangered bird. By foregrounding ordinary interactions with the outdoors, Watson challenges the expectation that nature must appear untouched in order to be meaningful. His work invites viewers to reconsider how land is valued—as scenery, resource, recreation site, habitat, or cultural inheritance. Rather than presenting answers, Watson opens space for reflection: Who gets to define what nature is? What constitutes a “nature lover”? And how do our everyday choices, movements, and pleasures shape the landscapes we claim to admire?