Before Realizing What I Was Doing

-

The Roof, oil on canvas, 20 x 14 inches, 1980.


Sitting at our dining room table yesterday my wife looked up and remarked about three of the four oils I had just hung on walls. "They're all pictures of home" she exclaimed. This hadn't been my plan, I just pulled out canvases that I felt like looking at.

Truro Kitchen, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches, 2018.



But I had to admit she was right. Without realizing it I had selected paintings of houses I'd like to live in. Places where I'd feel safe. In this time of a frightening virus, my unconscious was guiding my selections. In Truro Kitchen above the painting shows the tiny kitchen Edward Hopper designed for himself on Cape Cod. In the morning sunlight it's amazingly cozy- the kind of place we'd all like to be just now.



Houses on the Hill II, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 niches, 2020



We carry with us through our adult lives a sense of "how things are supposed to be" that forms in our childhood. I grew up in a house half way up a steep hillside. In Houses on the Hill II the backyards of these two houses near my studio in Baltimore have that same feeling. On a gut level I know I'd like to live there.

 Whenever you feel a special connection to a painting I've always said your are discovering a part of yourself in it. This is just another example of my own paintings showing me what I've been feeling.

Popular posts from this blog

Edward Hopper- Looking Out

-
Image
Edward Hopper, Cape Cod Morning,   oil on canvas, 1950,  Smithsonian American Art Museum Above is a painting I've loved for some forty years. I'm fortunate to be able to see it often as it lives in the SAAM in Washington, D.C. . This painting contains a real clue to Hopper's art. I visit there often as it helps me learn how to see better. Often writers will talk about the loneliness of Hopper's paintings or how his figures feel isolated and rarely interact with one another. While there is some of that in Hopper's painting, it begs a question- why is Hopper's art so widely loved? I'd offer a couple of answers. First, he's one of the most talented painters and was able to invent visual equivalents for strong emotions we humans experience as we live our lives.  He saw color combining in unexpected ways and offered up generous servings of the most delicious color combinations. Yum. Usually, as in the SAAM's Cape Cod Morning above, when he paints
Read more

Maier Museum of Art Acquires Work by Philip Koch

-
Image
Philip Koch, Edward Hopper's Studio, Truro,  vine charcoal, 7 x 14 inches, 2020, Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, Lynchburg, VA I'm happy the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College in Virginia has acquired my drawing above for their permanent collection. The drawing touches on my own history and the role seeing the work of the Edward Hopper played in my own career.  While m y own art is quite different than that of Edward Hopper I count his as my best teacher. A s a young painter  I began by making abstract canvases. But after it seeing his strong light and solid volumes it felt as if Hopper had tapped me on the shoulder saying "You know you really want to be a realist." My drawing was inspired both by my many residencies staying and working in Edward Hopper's studio on Cape Cod and by a particular Hopper painting in the Maier Museum's collection, Mrs. Scott's House . Initially I'd known of the Maier painting through reproductions. It fascin
Read more

Edward Hopper's Poetry of Empty Rooms

-
Image
I've just been invited by Rachael Solomon who is the Program Director of the  Edward Hopper House Art Center in Nyack, NY to have a mini solo show in one of their galleries.. We'll be showing some of my paintings of the interior of Edward Hopper's Cape Cod studio where I've had the great pleasure of enjoying 13 residencies since 1983. The Edward Hopper House Art Center is the boyhood home of the famous American realist artist. So much of what Hopper became stemmed from his early years there. So I'm excited to do the exhibit. It will be coming up in March through May of 2012.   Hopper didn't teach. Yet I learned more about how to become a good painter by studying his work than by any other single thing. Art after all is visual. Words, even beautifully and aptly spoken can get in the way. And Hopper was legendarily tactiturn. I suspect had someone asked Hopper how to paint an empty room, his terse reply would have been "Don't!".  Above is one of h
Read more