Philip Koch Paintings

A video of the June 28, 2022 public  conversation between Philip Koch and Assistant Curator Theresa Choi about Ogunquit Museum's exhibition of Koch's paintings.  The video runs 50 minutes.  Here's the link- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt8v5q6kiFc

"What a nice place to work" ran through my mind as I came into the studio this morning. The standing mirror catches a reflection of the canvas I'm working on right now. Some collectors have told me they'd love to see the space in Baltimore where I create most of my paintings. Here's a mini-tour. This is just some of the brushes that are stationed at the ready. Last night's color mixtures of blue pigments grace my palette. In the distance is one of the three easels I have in the painting room- it's usually holding  a painting I want to study. At the right is the standing mirror that's always aimed so I can see a reversed image of the painting I'm working on on my main easel. Loaded paintbrushes love to roll into their neighbor and get their wet colors all over each other. I made a simple grooved brush holder to keep each color of the brush clear of collisions with other unwanted hues. The main working easel at the right. It's super heavy which i

Philip Koch, White Cove , oil on panel, 7 x 10 1/2 inches, 2021 Artists have to be good liars. Sometimes little lies tell a bigger truth. Reality is incredibly vivid- sometimes delightful, other times anything but. On occasion we may need to tune out the world, but that's not a place we're meant to stay. Art wakes us up.  It reminds us why it's worth it to be open and aware. Artists make the case for this by presenting a heightened version of reality. Here are four of the paintings in Ogunquit Museum of American Art 's current exhibition of my work. The source for each was rooted in a  particular location. In each to get the story I need to tell I had to depart from the literal facts of the place.  White Cove above was begun at high tide along an inlet where dense foliage crowded over every inch of the shoreline.  In truth the trees were a solid mass of unchanging green that didn't convey their explosive lushness. I injected yellows and oranges into the scene to ev

  Philip Koch, Maine Islands, oil on panel, 7 x 17 1/2 inches, 2021 This is the post second in a series looking at the 15 paintings currently in the exhibition Philip Koch: Isle of Dreams  at  Ogunquit Museum of American Art in Maine (through July 19, 2022). Think for a moment on your life. So much is in flux. What have you learned? You face sweeping changes. Some things have been lost. And yet other things in us feel permanent.  Some stand firm like rocks resisting pounding surf. There are parts of all of us that feel exactly as they did when we were six. I have a near addiction to painting waters and shorelines.  Growing up right on the shore of Lake Ontario I feel naturally at home on the edge of the water. But there's something more to it. The way the land holds its place while the waters, turbulent or gentle, never really stop moving. I think we sense the currents both of change and permanence mirrored by the water hitting the shoreline. How often people fall into a reverie g

      New Day , oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches, 2022 Ogunquit Museum of American Art in Maine is presenting Philip Koch: Isle of Dreams  from May 1 - July 19, 2022.  Theresa Choi, the Assistant Curator at the museum, selected works for the show with a focus on themes of islands and shoreline.  Ogunquit Museum comes with an important link to my personal history. Early in my career seeing work by Edward Hopper made a powerful impact on me, inspiring me to change from painting abstractions to working as a realist. The Ogunquit Museum has hung my paintings in the same gallery space where in 2005 they showed the oils Hopper painted on the grounds of what would become the Ogunquit Museum. Here's one of those canvases- Hopper's Sea at Ogunquit  from 1914, a view painted from life directly behind where the museum stands today. My wife Alice and I made a special trip from Baltimore to Ogunquit to see that 2005 show of Hopper's work. You can stand and gaze on the same rocks that lie

Philip Koch,  Northland Birches, oil on canvas, 40 x 32 inches, 2021 Have you ever had a one of those dreams that seemed magical, that when you awakened left you with unusual energy and optimism? Most likely we all have. Last night I had one- a fable of swimming beneath the water to make remarkable discoveries. What these dreams mean matters less than that we enjoy and value them. They speak to us through a parade of images and shifting emotions. Sometimes with real power. Art has this in common with dreams. If you look at fifty paintings there will be one or two special ones that strike a chord within you. They're the ones you want to go back and look at again. Just what it is about these paintings that gives them this enchanting quality is nearly impossible to put into words. Yet the feeling they give us is unmistakeable.  When you're struck by one of those exceptional paintings I believe it mirrors a part of our unconscious side that we normally can't see clearly. It'