ArtZone 461 Gallery - Gage Opdenbrouw - Windows

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GAGE OPDENBROUW

WINDOWS

Windows are an old subject in painting, and an enduring human fascination. Paintings themselves have often been described as windows. In discussing modernist painting, the metaphor of a window is used, exploring to what extent a painting is a “seamless window” into another world, or alternatively, how it calls attention to paint, to process, and to the painting itself as its own content.

Windows have an evocative power as a bridge between inside and outside. They are a humble subject for a painting, and of course, the real subject of any picture of a window is light. Naturally, you could argue that light has been a central preoccupation of Western painting—on and off—for a long time.

There have been many great precedents in painting windows: works by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Matisse, Diebenkorn and Bischoff, Euan Uglow, Andrew Wyeth, and Antonio Lopez Garcia are just a few of my favorites. One of the issues that each of these painters negotiated is the unique painterly problem of representing 2 or more spaces within the same image. At its simplest, how can a square of one color, within another, evoke the feeling of a particular kind of light?

Shortly after I moved into my current flat, 5 years ago, I found myself slowly realizing that I had a mild obsession with my seemingly unremarkable kitchen window, and the view out of it. This collection of paintings began with the idea of painting the same basic composition—or subject—again and again. This is also not a new idea. However, I find the idea at the root of it compelling. If one pays close attention one realizes nothing is ever the same twice, especially the most familiar things. Rather than familiarity breeding contempt, it can breed for the attentive new richness. As much as practicality allows, these works are painted from life, from direct observation, allowing for a slow accumulation of moments, colors, lighting effects and observations to add up to an image.

There’s also a quality to my flat that I enjoy painting—comfortable, old, modest, worn…quintessentially San Franciscan. The spaces portrayed in these paintings are either my own or those of people I know. I believe the vision to make art out of the everyday is a laudable artistic goal. After all, if we can be present and aware of something as simple yet deeply evocative as the beauty of the light coming into a room, we can only be better for it. These paintings are my response to the same impulse that prompted Edward Hopper to say, “I just want to paint sunlight on the side of a house”.

ARTZONE 461