Sedona artists are redefining what it means to paint place, absorbing the setting’s color, energy, and sense of openness into abstract, material-driven, and deeply personal work.
Beyond Representation
These artists are approaching the iconic Sedona setting in less literal ways, resulting in a quieter, more expansive vision of the area, one rooted in feeling rather than sight.
Denize Katzen’s paintings, for example, center on women whose stylized forms exist in quiet dialogue with the natural world, often accompanied by birds that represent freedom for the artist.
Katzen’s use of turquoise, orange, and red, drawn from the surrounding setting, anchors her compositions, while expanses of blue echo the region’s open skies.
Katzen’s background in acting and dance influences her depiction of the female form, which she approaches with an awareness of gesture and movement, emphasizing the curves and movement of women’s bodies as they interact with nature.
Her figures are not portraits, but rather embodiments of presence, rhythm, and a kind of quiet, internal freedom, highlighting the connection between women and the natural world.
Abstracting the Setting
Julie Bernstein Engelmann’s luminous abstractions, built in layers of acrylic, Conté crayon, and intuitive mark-making, unfold slowly, revealing depth and movement over time, with place entering the work obliquely through color and memory.
Engelmann’s compositions feel at once spontaneous and resolved, with gestures looping and colliding before settling into balance, and her use of color, such as flashes of salmon and sun-warmed ochre, echoes the surrounding hills without describing them directly.
Engelmann’s process is deeply personal and intuitive, with much of her work inspired by her dreams and spiritual quest, as she works to layer, wipe away, and rebuild her paintings until they open up like a hologram, revealing an immersive atmosphere.
Material Connections
Lynn Haygood Lee’s compositions incorporate finely sifted red earth from her Sedona backyard into her underpaintings, allowing the pigment to surface through layers of acrylic and tape-defined stripes, making the land present not as image, but as material.
Lee’s process is both methodical and intuitive, using “miles and miles of tape” to build compositions of varied-width bands, then painting, reworking, and often painting over again, leaving traces of earlier decisions beneath the surface.
Many of Lee’s pieces are named for places, but they read as meditations on solitude, scale, and the quiet resonance of the desert, highlighting the connection between the artist’s inner world and the natural environment.
Lee’s use of local materials and her emphasis on process over representation reflect her desire to capture the essence of Sedona, rather than its literal appearance, and to convey the complex emotions and sensations that the place evokes.
These artists’ approaches to capturing the essence of Sedona, rather than its literal representation, result in work that is deeply personal and rooted in the experience of place, inviting the viewer to absorb and reflect on the beauty and tranquility of the area.
As the setting continues to inspire artists, their work serves as a reminder that the experience of place is complex and has many aspects, and that art can capture its essence in ways that go beyond representation, much like timeless design roots found in nearby cities.
The intersection of art and place in Sedona is characterized by a deep sense of connection and dialogue between the artists and their environment, with each artist bringing their unique perspective and experience to the table, and contributing to a rich and lively cultural setting.
Through their work, these artists demonstrate that the experience of Sedona is not just about the visual setting, but also about the emotions, sensations, and ideas that it evokes, and that art can be a powerful tool for capturing and conveying the essence of a place.
