Philip Koch: Isle of Dreams at Ogunquit Museum of American Art Part II

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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 gazing upon the shore and the water. Looking out at these things we sense something within ourselves. 


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Philip Koch, Maine Islands, vine charcoal and pastel on paper, 9 x 12 inches, 2020


Both the Maine Islands oil above and the charcoal and pastel preparatory drawing below it were based on small islands just offshore in the Sand Beach area of Stonington, Maine.



Also Isle au Haut, Morning below was begun from a drawing I made on the hillside above the village of Stonington, ME. I had risen early to watch the sunrise over the mountains on distant Isle au Haut in Acadia National Park. A thin mist caught the rising light in a way that made the air itself glow. 

Philip Koch, Isle au Haut, Morning, oil on panel, 6 1/2 x 13 inches, 2016



Pounding waves of course can overtime wear down rocks into smaller stone and eventually into grains of fine sand. It can turn the shore to a brilliant white color. I had a memory of early summer grasses next to those pure white notes of sand. This is a painting I did recalling how I  felt at the waterside in the brilliant sun that day.


Philip Koch, Clear Water, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches, 2021




Photo of the installation in Ogunquit Museum of American Art

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