An Early Fascination with Light

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    Philip Koch, Inland II, oil on canvas, 45 x 60 inches, 2020


Paintings are about what fascinates us. 

People often remark my paintings celebrate light and shadow. This began for me in an unusual way. 

When I was very young my family lived in a deep forest on the northernmost border of the US. I confessed to my father I worried about getting lost. He smiled and told me I could find my way by studying the sunlight- that we lived so far north the shadows cast by the trees pretty much always pointed north. I was charmed by the idea and found it worked. 

Now years later the idea that the light keeps us from getting lost seems an apt metaphor for living. 

 

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