JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

Artist Brian Tydings' paintings are usually 48-by-60 inches or 54-by-68 inches and often take three months to complete, he says.

JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

This is one of Brian Tydings' unnamed pieces.

| Amy Matzke-Fawcett

amy.matzke-fawcett@roanoke.com, 381-1674

NEWPORT -- For artist Brian Tydings, the end result of his work isn't as important as the physical process.

A show featuring Tydings' works opens tonight at the XYZ Gallery in Blacksburg.

He describes his large oil-on-canvas works as abstract impressionism. The paintings are usually 48-by-60 inches or 54-by-68 inches and often take three months to complete, Tydings said.

He often works on two at a time, alternating between them and working quickly in a "deep state of concentration," something he likens to hunting and gathering.

"I want the paintings to have a feeling of creation and destruction at the same time," said Tydings, whose studio is at the Newport Recreation Center.

The size and intensity of the paintings are what makes the impact, said Jared Clifton, co-president of the XYZ Gallery. Kim Nguyen is the other co-president..

"It has a presence, and the size surprises you," Clifton said. "There's an intensity about it that stops you in your tracks."

The amount of time spent on the works is also obvious, he said.

"All seem very heavily worked," Clifton said. "Maybe you could come up with similar end results more quickly, but a lot is about process with these."

Tydings also had a show in the gallery in the summer of 2008. Many of the Virginia Tech-run gallery's five shows per semester are student or faculty works, but it occasionally shows work from the community.

"I think imagination is something that is stripped away and denied as you age, and painting offers an atonement to remind us imagination is vital," Tydings said.

The Colorado native moved to Radford in 2005 but has been painting for much longer.

He attended the San Francisco Art Institute for one semester in 1998 but dropped out after realizing he wanted to focus solely on painting.

Tydings has also worked in television and film when he lived in Colorado, but he said nothing had the impact of painting.

When he's not painting, he works at Lowe's Home Improvement in Fairlawn in the paint department, which he said was probably a purposeful move somewhere in his subconscious.

His work in the paint department has taught him one thing, however.

"I've learned you can always paint over things," he said.