Rodney Troth (B 1955) American, Oil on Canvas. Signed, dated 1982, and titled "Wabu View" on back. Depicts a farmstead amongst the rolling hills and plains of the Midwest, with storm clouds streaking into the distance.

Overall size: 36 3/4 X 39 in.

Sight size: 35 1/2 X 37 1/2 in.

#1484 .

Rodney Troth was born in Baldwin, Kansas in 1955. While studying architecture at the University of Kansas, he enrolled in a painting class taught by Robert Sudlow. Inspired by his mentor’s Expressionist landscapes and a desire to experiment with freeform geometric shapes, he incorporated abstract imagery into his own works, eventually dropping out of college and continuing to paint while working in construction. Sudlow, who communicated with him for the remainder of his life, encouraged Troth to read the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, a classic manual of traditional Chinese brushwork that teaches artists to respond to what they see intuitively, as if having a conversation with the landscape. Drawing on this work heavily while emulating Abstract Expressionists like Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, and Mark Rothko, he began to focus on strata paintings, which feature bands of color that seem to hum together with their bold hues and softly uneven edges. Often the bars of color in his abstract works mimic segments of land-and-sky horizons in his larger-than-life landscapes, which include oil-on-canvas works, watercolors, and chalk drawings. His work appears in numerous private collections and galleries throughout the Midwest.

Location BA