Peter Fiore is a landscape painter originally from New Jersey and now based in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Fiore’s landscapes are marvels of balanced contrasts of hue and value. Light is an actor here, flitting across the canvas, heightening passages of landscape and foliage, spotlighting the trunks of trees or strands of grass, and leaving other passages untouched.

Often Fiore will play with patches of light in the distance of his scenes, both emphasizing their depth and leading you into them. He also frequently uses light and value contrasts to create a sense of “here” and “there” in his compositions, which gives the viewer an even more visceral sense of presence in the scene.

He frequently uses a motif of two major color groups, for example: blues and golden yellows in his snow covered winter fields and greens and blues in his summer scenes of rivers and fields.

Fiore received his formal training at Pratt Institute and also studied painting at the Art Student’s League. He has since taught at both institutions and currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

He also conducts workshops. There are several videos of him working or conducting gallery talks available on YouTube, including a short version (2 minutes) and long version (10 minutes) of one particular plein air session.

Fiore’s work is currently on display in a one man show at the Travis Gallery in New Hope, PA.

This is a terrific gallery just outside of New Hope proper, and Fiore is one of several excellent contemporary realist painters they represent.

The gallery has a selection of work from the show. (Note that the link will be the next current show after this show has ended.) You can also see some photos from the show, which opened in candle light during power outages from the recent storm, on Fiore’s blog.

Fiore also has an alternate blog, Landscape a Day, that is no longer being updated but still has an archive of posts and images. In addition there is a selection of larger images on the Art Renewal Center.

The show at the Travis gallery runs until this Saturday, November 24, 2012. On that Saturday, the 24th, Fiore will be giving a gallery talk and slide presentation at the gallery.

Aron Wiesenfeld’s paintings, though not actually narrative in the usual sense, carry an implied a narrative, a suggestion that you are glimpsing a scene for which relevant events are happening, or have happened, outside the scope of what is seen.

In scenes that carry an atmosphere of isolation, his subjects, often young women, stare contemplatively — and in some way seem detached from their immediate surroundings, reinforcing the feeling that something of importance, but unseen to the viewer, is the focus of their thoughts.

Wiesenfeld’s finesse in walking up to the edge of overt narrative, and then pulling back just enough to leave the mystery intact, perhaps owes to storytelling skills developed in his early work as a comic book artist and cover illustrator.

After leaving that field he studied traditional classical painting and drawing at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and from there began his still evolving approach to his painted subjects.

Wiesenfeld utilizes muted ranges of value and color, punctuated with higher contrast areas of primary interest, to give his compositions a feeling of drama as well as an undercurrent of emotion. This is heightened by his use of texture to slow down the eye, let linger over backgrounds and environments, and add to the sense of stillness and reflection.

There are galleries of both paintings and drawings on Wiesenfeld’s website, as well as a stream on Flickr.

Those in the New York area can see Wiesenfeld’s work on display in a one artist exhibition of new work at the Arcadia Gallery in Soho. The show runs until November 24, 2012.

(Note that after the show ends, the link given above will change to the next current show, but you will still be able to view Wiesenfeld’s work at the Arcadia, which represents his work on an ongoing basis, using this link.) The images galleries on the Arcadia site are more extensive than those on the artist’s own site.