My art career started when I got noticed as a certain kind of genre painter. I mostly painted scenes of quaint French villages, the Tuscan hillside, elegant cafes, and bustling restaurant interiors. All very romantic and gorgeous subject matter. I regretfully admit that I would drive around my own town and think, “There’s nothing to paint here”. What an idiot I was! I live in Nashville, TN, and we have some crazy beautiful landscape and architecture, but I wasn’t able to get exited about it until I stopped painting what I thought would sell in certain galleries. I still enjoy painting those “overly romantic” subjects, but I as I grow as an artist I am continually astonished and delighted by the beauty in the ordinary. My paintings are now about light and atmosphere more than about the actual subject. There is just so much loveliness in the world if you know how to see.
These paintings were recently completed on location in a historic area right outside of downtown Nashville. I’ve always been a nut for architecture, but really these paintings are about what was happening in the sky. I could tweak a couple of things, but I don’t want to correct too much and lose the charm of the moment. Storms had been blowing through for days and on this morning the light was changing every 10 seconds. Fun stuff!
Germantown
“If there is a heaven it must be on earth, because the earth is so beautiful. Everyone subconsciously appreciates this beauty. But the painter’s appreciation is more conscious for he spends his life trying to communicate that to others.”
~–Emile Gruppé