ArtZone 461 Gallery - Gage Opdenbrouw

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GAGE OPDENBROUW

SILENCE AND DISTANCE

These paintings are part of an ongoing exploration of a sight that I grew up with, and which resonates deeply within me: the Pacific Ocean. Born and raised in San Jose, I made trips with my family often to the coast, and that habit has continued all my life.

I’ve always found the ocean deeply hypnotic, at once soothing and threatening, since it is so massive and impenetrable, dwarfing all that is human. Contemplating the ocean makes me feel insignificant, and also deeply thankful for the beauty that surrounds, if we take the time to look at the natural world. A big part of that beauty is mystery, and the vastness of the ocean and the sky, the play of light and color over such an immense space, express that insignificance eloquently. A common concern in traditional landscape painting is to capture a certain kind of light, fleeting effects of the atmosphere and so on. While I am concerned with that to a certain degree, my aim is to distill such things to a point where they become more potent and less literal.

For the past 7 years or so, I have focused on bringing forth these feelings with radically simplified paintings of the ocean. Certainly they owe something to artists like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, but also are influenced by artists like Turner and Caspar David Friedrich and others who saw the landscape as a vehicle for the spiritual. I am keenly aware that nothing lasts, and so I find great beauty and sadness in being attentive, for nothing is ever the same, if one really and truly looks.

My paintings of the city share many similar concerns. One of the most compelling problems to solve is how to simplify such a complicated view into something digestible, how to synthesize the rhythms of buildings and trees, light and shadow, into a satisfying abstract rhythm without losing the sense of space. As always, navigating the difference between paint and illusion, surface and depth, is an important part of the work. These paintings are more literal, and look realistic from a distance, but become very abstract up close, for a painter concerned with atmosphere, what better city to paint than San Francisco?

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS (Day of the Dead)

These paintings have evolved from a number of photographs taken on one evening, “Dia de Los Muertos”, or the Day of the Dead,~November 2nd, 2005. The paintings, for the most part, are images of close friends, (and even one of myself), all painted and dressed up like skeletons on this day of remembrance.

For personal reasons, these photos are very evocative for me of bigger intertwined themes of life & death, love and loss, friendship, and the passing of time, and the idea of family. I love the contrast between the imposing image of the mask, and the realization that beneath that skull is a sensitive pair of eyes looking out…and, beneath that, the real skull. In some of the paintings, that relationship is more ambiguous, and the people truly look like skeletons. The photographs I’ve worked from were both my own, and those of various folks depicted in the paintings, many of whom are artists I work with on a daily basis, and I thank them for being so generous with such wonderful material for my use.

I love that night, the quiet and reverent but also festive crowds winding their way through the streets, the quiet presence of those that have passed on, and the unique atmosphere, simultaneously grave and joyous. It seems to me important that we acknowledge our ghosts, and one night a year, spend time with them a little more directly”.

ARTZONE 461