Featured Artist Robert Magaw

Explore the light-filled impressionistic landscapes in artist Robert Magaw’s portfolio, and see more by visiting his website.

 

 

I have been fortunate to have traveled and painted all over the world. My paintings have found homes in private collections, corporations and many galleries.

 

 

After painting so many beautiful places in the world, I am asked the question, “Why return to Ohio?” My answer is simple—this is where I began and the passage of time has not diminished my memories of the skies, woods and waters of my hometown.

 

 

The shifting temperament of the seasons allow me to fill paintings with quietness and solitude or wild potency with bold streaks of light and shadow that spill across the open stretches, carving their own strong, beautiful furrows over the land. So, this place and I—we simply re-kindled our love affair. I began here and I will end here.

 

 

There is always something new to learn from my immersion into the landscape. I paint not merely to record the scene, but to capture the sense, the emotion, the poetry of the place.

 

 

I have been blessed with a nearly photographic memory and can carry those images with me to the studio. The creative process for me is always intense, determined and experimental. I see every painting whole—complete in my mind—as I once, as an architect in New York City, saw buildings complete before setting about to make the drawings to realize my vision.

 

 

My early approach to painting was much the same as when I designed buildings. I required absolute control over the project. Gradually I learned to let go of that control.

 

 

I begin with a dark canvas, racing to keep pace with my mind’s vision for the new work. I paint broadly, impressionistically, without sketches, reference photos or preliminary drawings. As the painting unfolds, I feel my own artistic control giving way—the painting becomes what it wants to be.

 

 

Over many years, I have learned not to fight against that impulse. It excites me. Every painting becomes a collaboration of my technical ability and the visceral honesty of emotion.

 

 

I experiment with different effects on almost every painting. I use large brushes on small works, mix and blend paint on the canvas and glaze layers of color until I sense that warm familiarity of a forgotten time or place.

 

 

Viewing a finished painting becomes less about understanding the artist and more about the scene as an invitation to a story. Many times, observers of a finished work say to me, “I have been there” or, “I want to walk into that scene.” Those comments let me know that they have a strong response to what I’ve painted, and carry their own version of the story found there.

The act of painting is intimately personal for me. It is never soothing or relaxing. No, this is not a pastime—it is a necessity.

 

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