6/25/26

Mementos of Europe

This exhibit is made up of the coming together of two passions of mine: oil painting and travel to Europe.

About 600 years ago oil painting was invented in Bruges and perfected in Venice and other art centers. So, when I am in Europe to draw, paint, and view paintings,  I feel connected to a very long tradition. And this is an important reason I visit so often.

Over many years I have made several series of paintings on European cities and landscapes.  I must love Venice the most, I've done 30 paintings of that city made of brick that looks like its floating on the lagoon.  Four paintings from Venice are in this exhibit.

While traveling I make at least one drawing each day, drawings are done on site in watercolor, graphite, and ink. And then, once back in the studio a few of them become paintings where memory can become a partner in the painting process, and where my emotional use of color can make its contribution.

Usually I don’t make these kinds of predictions, but while doing the most recent sketch last March in Rome, Albergo della Catena, I knew that it would become a painting. The scene has elements I love about Rome, totally different eras of history piled up on one another, all with interesting textures. At the time I thought I was doing it just for myself, but here I am, offering it to you.

I hope you enjoy these scenes from Europe and that they prompt wonderful memories for you as they do for me.

Robert Gamblin

Transcendent Landscapes: Oil Paintings from the Cascade Head Biosphere Reserve 

by Robert Gamblin

The landscapes are just outside the door of my studio on Cascade Head. My intention is to 

capture in color and share the sublime, some may say transcendent, landscape of the Biosphere Reserve. One must arrive with senses open then merely experience nature in and of itself. 

Upon first glance around the gallery, color will stand out. Color is telling the visual story and carries the clearest expression of emotion.  Color communicates emotionally in the same way as music.  Both generate emotional reactions unencumbered by the rational.   As you move through the gallery, let the color speak to you, and see what comes up.   

There are four themes or subjects that I am exploring:   the Vibration of Light, Sitka Portraits, Forest Paintings, Estuary Elements.     

The Vibration of Light series are my sensory experiences.  They are about standing on the edge of a huge open space, seeing and feeling the light that falls on the landscape and illuminates the atmosphere.  This light is vibrating with energy.     

I have employed a “broken color” technique first used by the impressionists to elicit the feeling of the vibration. Broken color is a breaking up of a field of color into patches or spots so that the color looks more intense.  And it is the post-impressionists, such a Seurat and Signac, who explored this technique most famously.  For the most part, the paint is applied opaquely to reflect as much light as possible to the viewer. 

In direct contrast to the Vibration series are the Forest Paintings, they are an emotional counterpoint. The deep dark forest, much is unseen, most is in the shadows, yet much is there.   Also, the light in the Forest Paintings is handled in an opposite way.  The forest eats up light and only sparingly gives it back, to recreate that feeling I paint with transparent color. Light gets into the transparencies, and only some of it comes back out to the viewer.  

The Sitka Portraits are very much like figures.  Just as people acquire character with age, each of these Sitkas has a unique personality from a pose they grew into decades ago.   

I especially like the way they reach out, reaching out on long limbs or short broken stubs of branches, all this is evidence of their long lives, and reflects the history of the storms they have weathered.   As the Sitkas reach out for light and moisture, and dance in the wind, to me they symbolize our need as humans to reach out to be in connection to everything and everyone in our lives.  

The Estuary Elements are about aspects coming together, freshwater to salt, sky to river and ocean, and the play of light between the elements. The landforms provide the dividing line between what’s above and what’s below.  

Robert Gamblin

Spring 2024

Two years ago, I created a studio on the Oregon coast and have been living/painting here half time.  This is not just the coast but it’s a rain forest of sitka spruce and red alders.  And not just a rain forest, but we are on Cascade Head which is a UN Biosphere Reserve.  One of only 5 in the US. In other words, it’s a very special, and protected, landscape. 

This landscape consists of the large headland on the ocean, a 100 + year old forest, and the Salmon River with its estuary.  This has all become more than my subject matter, it has become my muse. 

What a sea change this has been for me.  For most of my painting career I have traveled a ton, and that travel was my muse. I made series after series on a number of great places I have visited and loved.   I have come to think of this past work as being done with the eyes of tourist.  By that I mean no disparagement.  Having the eyes of a tourist is a wonderful state of mind, all is new, all is exciting. The paintings I made of these places while back in the studio were done as a way to extend my visit emotionally to these amazing places.  

But now, I am painting and drawing the place where I live, as so many landscape painters have done over the whole history of landscape painting.   It feels great to have my subject matter all around and  just outside the door. Is this how it feels to be a sheep? “Ah, I was born in a salad bowl, my dinner is always just under my nose!”

What’s so great about being here?  Yes, it is beautiful, but there is more, and I always struggle to describe the subtle connections between myself and a great landscape.  Fortunately I don’t have to, all I have to say has been put into the paintings.  All the work currently on the website are paintings and drawings from here on Cascade Head.

Normally my wife (who is the artist catherinekumlin.com) and I travel to major art capitals for inspiration and promoting our color company.  Iceland is an exception to that of course.  But I have a friend, henryjackson.com, who has been trying for about 8 years to get me to go to Monte Azul, an artist retreat center, in the rain forest of Costa Rica.  

In May he finally succeeded in getting us down there with him.  And I am so glad we went.  Henry and I are starting an art project together based on the rain forest.  And as part of that process I needed to show him how the landscape affected me in terms of color and form.  The intensity of the activity, competition for all the available space and resources is intense.  I hope my work reflects that. 

One more thing.  This is a bit strange, but as a landscape painter I have always had an ambivalent relationship to green.  I resisted having a whole life’s work as green landscapes. That I have succeeded with, but my relationship to green could use some therapy.  Painting in the rain forest did it for me.  We usually think of green as being a calm, peaceful, perhaps boring color.  In the rainforest it is strong, even aggressive.

Monteazulcr.com

This is not a full review of Monte Azul Center for the Arts, but I do highly recommend it and the lovely people who own and run it. 

I spent most of the month of February the past winter in Italy.  10 days to visit Venice, Florence, and Rome, followed by two weeks in Sicily.

One of the major two themes in my work is based on painting architecture.  For example, I have series based on Amsterdam, Portland, Bruges, Palm Springs…. the series on Venice now has about 30 paintings in it.  

  One new one from Venice.  It is a night scene.  I have painted so many canal scenes, when I am in Venice now, I am looking for new subject matter. How the light reveals and conceals the city at night is beautiful. Venice XX is from this last trip.

What I think I love best about painting Italy are the textures of the stone buildings and streets, and how the light plays on those surfaces.  The stone carries the patina of age so beautifully, while working on one of them I frequently feel, …”now this is what oil painting was invented to do.”