BY KAREN BOSSICK

Robert McCauley’s paintings and mixed media work are rooted in the tradition of 19^th century American Romanticism. But his narratives are painfully current.

His latest body of work, which will be showcased during Friday’s Gallery Walk at Gail Severn Gallery, is titled “The Great American Animal Census Project.” And it addresses the effect of climate change on the wildlife that he typically portrays in his work.

McCauley will be present for the Christmas Gallery Walk reception from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 27. He also will take part in a free Artist Chat at 10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 28, at the gallery. Light refreshments will be served.

McCauley believes there should be a census taken of wildlife, showing how the destruction of habitat has affected steelhead and Kodiak brown bears, just as the government takes a census of the humans who reside in the United States, said Gallery Owner Gail Severn.

“Robert grew up in the Pacific Northwest and moved to Illinois to work at the University of Illinois. When he retired, he moved back to the Northwest and was shocked at the depredation of the forest streams and salmon runs,” said Severn. “His whole show is looks at the impact of global warming and climate change and how man is impacting our natural environment.”

Indeed, McCauley says, the salmon streams he fished in as a child are full of silt and have no more salmon.

“The Native Americans used to set a trap of chicken wire a half mile out to sea and I would watch the salmon in the trap in awe,” he added. “That’s gone. Even the huge fishing resorts are gone because the fish are gone. And, with clear-cutting, a small greenbelt of 10 feet on either side of the roads makes you think you’re looking at forest. But beyond that it’s just devastation.”

Here are some other highlights of Friday’s Christmas Gallery Walk:

• KNEELAND GALLERY, 271 N. 1^st Ave. N.--Ovanes Berberian, who was born in Russian Armenia, will be among the artists featured in the gallery’s “Winter Reverie” exhibition. He studied under the tutelage of his father—a noted artist and professor—before moving to the United States in 1977. And he studied with master painter Sergei Bongart, who not only taught him about color relationships, hues and values but exposed him to the beauty of Idaho where Berberian now resides. Berberian’s rich landscapes and lavish still life art can be found in prominent collections worldwide.

  Renowned plein air painter Robert Moore and Sun Valley artist Lori McNee will also be featured in the exhibition.

  Moore, who has mentored many accomplished painters, applies a multitude of oil hues to his canvas, then works with a palette knife with both hands until his composition emerges. The result is all the more extraordinary, considering that Moore suffers from partial color blindness.

  McNee paints detailed images that are rich in symbolism—her work has been compared to that of the Dutch masters.

• GILMAN CONTEMPORARY, 661 Sun Valley Road—"Vantage Points” is a holiday group exhibition celebrating the unique perspective photographers and painters bring to their work. The exhibition includes Jeri Eisenberg’s photographs of lily pads and Kelly Ordling’s geometric acrylic and ink works.
• FRIESEN GALLERY, 320 First Avenue North at Sun Valley Road--The “Light Bearer/Shadow Player” works of glassblower Anna Skibska are being featured, as are the “Shift Stack Bend” works of Lloyd Martin.

  Skibska’s glassmaking bridges the worlds of architecture, line drawing and sculpture. She uses an acetylene torch to manipulate glass rods into fine intertwining threads, creating translucent webs of gravity-defying forms that ask viewers to consider space and light, darkness and shadow.

  “I like to wrap space, embrace time and trap light, working on them simultaneously from the same beginning,” she says.

  Lloyd Martin is known internationally for his rhythmically constructed abstract painting. He passionately engaged with color and line in his latest body of work, which reveals a hypnotic framework. He will make his first visit to Sun Valley to coincide with the exhibition opening.

• GAIL SEVERN GALLERY, 400 First Avenue North--Featuring a group exhibition that will showcase the wide variety of the gallery’s internationally recognized and emerging artists who will have one-person exhibitions at the gallery in 2020. They include Pegan Brooke, Linda Christensen, Bean Finneran, Michael Gregory, Margaret Keelan, Judith Kindler, Hung Liu, Chris Maynard, Laura McPhee, Kathy Moss, Marcia Myers, Luis Gonzales Palma, Robert Polidori, Rana Rochat, Jane Rosen, Allison Stewart and Theodore Waddell.

  The art ranges from the poignant portraits of indigenous peoples of Central and South America by Luis Gonzales Palma to Bean Finneran’s newest ceramic sculptures and Chris Maynard’s exquisite manipulations of bird feathers.

  The gallery is also featuring a solo exhibition of Robert McCauley who focuses on bears in this exhibition, while including trout and hummingbirds to address climate change and the loss of species and habitat.

• SUN VALLEY CENTER FOR THE ARTS, 5^th and Washington streets--“Behind the Sagebrush Curtain” features several Montana and Idaho artists’ take on the West. Artists are Gennie DeWeese, Edith Freeman, Isabelle Johnson, Helen McAuslan, Frances Senska, Jessie Wilber and Sara Joyce.
• BROSCHOFSKY GALLERY, 360 East Avenue—The current exhibition features the “Urban Cowboy” stencil works of Rudi Broschofsky, as well as the rich landscapes of Western artist Russell Chatham, who passed away last month at age 80.
• MESH GALLERY, at 4^th and Leadville streets--Features stunning local landscapes of photographers Jeffery Lubeck, Ed Cannady and Tory Taglio.
• HARVEY ART PROJECTS, 659 Sun Valley Road--Features contemporary indigenous works from Australia, such as that of the Papunya Tula Artists.
• MOUNTAIN IMAGES GALLERY, 360 East Avenue. Featuring Sun Valley photographer James Bourret stunning triptych and other photographs of the Sawtooth Mountains and other scenic vistas in the American West.
• STONE ART GALLERY, 631 E. Second St. in the Walnut Avenue Mall--Featuring Owner Jeff Homchick’s work honed by the time he served as an apprentice under Italian stonemasons, as well as that of other master stone artists who use a variety of stones and marbles in their work.
• WOOD RIVER FINE ARTS, 360 East Avenue--Features paintings and sculptures from Western artists whose works have been shown in major Western shows around the country. New works depicting Idaho are provided by plein air artist Daniel W. Pinkham, Coeur d’Alene sculptor George Carlson and landscape artist Amy Sidrane, who studied art with the renowned Russian Impressionist Sergei Bongart.
• FREDERIC BOLOIX FINE ARTS, 351 Leadville Ave.--Featuring modern masters such as Julian Voss-Andreae, Martin Herbst and Antonio Sannino.