Philip Koch: Isle of Dreams Exhibition- Ogunquit Museum of American Art

-


     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 just feet from the museum's gallery. It's a reminder that painting has to be an inner response to the subject. It's most of all about what the artist singles out for emphasis, what is left out, how the color choices may radically depart from what was observed. 

A realist painting succeeds when it creates its own new world.



 Clearing, oil on canvas, 30 x 60 inches, 2022


The idea for my oil Clearing began years before in a series of vine charcoal drawings I made on location on the bridge over Otter Cove on Mt. Desert Island, up the Maine coast from Ogunquit. My color choices were invented to evoke the resonance I felt between the shifting patterns in the water against the sky.

Here are a few more of the paintings in the current exhibition. 



    Late July, oil on panel, 6 1/2 x 13 inches, 2021

Late July came into being back in my studio based on vine charcoal drawings I made of the Porcupine Islands just off of Bar Harbor, ME.





Narrow Cove, Ogunquit, oil on panel, 12 x 16 inches, 2021


The Narrow Cove, Ogunquit oil was done from the drawing below. While faithful to the general silhouettes in the drawing it injects an unanticipated note with the color decisions. I feel the painting is accurate in how it gives a sense of how it feels to stand before those rocks and the ocean.


Narrow Cove, Ogunquit, vine charcoal, 8 x 12 inches, 2021


My wife Alice  took this photo of me studying the rhythms of the rock formations just outside the museum.


 Philip Koch working on the above charcoal drawing on the shore
just behind the Ogunquit Museum, Oct. 2021.


In the next few posts I'll tell a little background on the remaining works in the museum's exhibition.

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