Painting in a Modern Light

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Paul G. Oxborough
Painting in a Modern Light
BY PETER TRIPPI
I
GH
t’s always cause for celebration when the Minneapolis-based
painter Paul G. Oxborough (b. 1965) opens a solo show. That
welcome occasion will be upon us again when his representative, Eleanor Ettinger Gallery, presents more than 20 new pictures in its Midtown
Manhattan space from December 6 through January 5.
Whether he is depicting diners and staff ensconced in a twinkling
restaurant, or women lounging by sun-drenched beaches and pools,
Oxborough’s primary subject is actually the lively interplay of light and
shadow, a dynamic he has mastered completely. As viewers, we stumble
upon his tranquil scenes unexpectedly, as if we are strolling by just
slowly enough to look up and catch a flickering glimpse of something
FineArtConnoisseur.com | November/December 2012
simultaneously ordinary and beautifully composed. Such seeming serendipity is hard-earned, of course, and it might not have blossomed
had Oxborough not pursued a rather unusual training.
A DIFFERENT ROAD
As a boy growing up in Minneapolis, the budding artist admired
the images of fantasy artists such as Frank Frazetta (1928-2010; see the
Under the Palapa
2012, Oil on linen, 12 x 18 in.
On view at Eleanor Ettinger Gallery, New York City
Coat Check $3
2012, Oil on linen, 26 x 20 in.
On view at Eleanor Ettinger Gallery,
New York City
cruel to deny an artistic spirit his full
palette for two years, but then a teenager’s orthodontia also seems barbaric
until we admire the straightened teeth
that emerge from under the braces a few
years later.
Oxborough believes his classical
training was akin to a musician “learning scales before attempting to play
jazz.” He feels, “Even if you’re going to
break the rules, you need to learn them.”
Importantly — and this certainly shows
in his mature work — Oxborough is
not a zealot about academic technique.
He distances himself from its “cultish
aspects,” rejecting, he says, “the idea that
there is only one way to do things, and
that other ways of making art don’t have
validity. It has always seemed to me that
the best part of art is that it comes from
the heart. I took what I needed [from
Lesueur] and left.”
Indeed, Oxborough graduated and
painted a batch of acceptable still lifes, but
feels he did not click until he, his musician wife, Jenny, and their four children
moved to southwestern France for a year.
He has compared this (risky) immersion
in traditional art and culture to graduate
school, and one could say that his resulting M.A. thesis was a group of roughly 30
paintings that constituted his successful
first show, in 1996 (at a Minneapolis gallery that no longer exists).
Today, the artist and his family
travel widely, most often to southern
Europe to revel in the sunshine their
home state lacks for half the year. Eleanor Ettinger Gallery’s Frann Bradford
rightly notes that Oxborough’s already
dramatic effects of light and shadow grew even more compelling after
a 2008 visit to Africa. For 15 years now, Oxborough has been painting
white more deftly than anyone of his generation: under his brush, a
white bedsheet is, in fact, a riot of colorful strokes, all coalescing into
what our eye actually sees on the bed. “It’s hard to describe without seeing it,” Oxborough explains, “but for me the light in France is pink and
yellow. In Portugal, it’s so white it almost makes the ground look like it’s
covered in snow.”
Once they have grasped the ostensible subject of his scene (e.g., bartenders polishing glassware), perceptive viewers quickly come to admire
Oxborough’s sensitivity to how different light sources glint distinctively,
and to how surfaces nearby catch that light in their own ways. The latest
paintings reveal his ongoing fascination with the lighting effects we see
in bars, restaurants, cafés, and clubs — an age-old theme addressed not
only by Oxborough’s favorite forerunner, Edouard Manet, but also in
August 2012 issue of Fine Art Connoisseur). “For me,” he recalls, “the first
artist who made things look real was Norman Rockwell. When I found
him too illustrative, I noticed Edward Hopper. Then, of course, Renoir
and van Gogh.” Blessed with encouraging parents and a high school art
teacher who showed him that art can be as much a practical career as a
bohemian lifestyle, Oxborough enrolled in the Minneapolis College of
Art and Design. He departed after a year, however, disenchanted with its
do-what-you-feel postmodernism.
Fortunately, he soon landed nearby, at Atelier Lesueur, where
Annette Lesueur offered a four-year “apprenticeship” modeled on the
academic curriculum practiced during the 19th century. In his first year,
Oxborough drew only in black and white, followed by a second year
of painting in black and white; no color was allowed until Year 3. As
explained on page __, such rigor — nay, deprivation — makes a student
look at the world more carefully forevermore. From a distance, it seems
FineArtConnoisseur.com | November/December 2012
FineArtConnoisseur.com | November/December 2012
In the Pool
2012, Oil on linen, 30 x 40 in.
On view at Eleanor Ettinger Gallery, New York City
Bernard Perlin’s The Bartender of 1958 (see page 63) and in the works of
younger talents like Lindsay Goodwin (b. 1982).
Many commentators have praised Oxborough’s observations of ordinary life as both personal and empathetic. We all have encountered scenes
like this, and even when we haven’t (in the case of the Kalahari Bush People
he painted a few years ago), we surely grasp the artist’s claim that “I see
a story and try to tell it.” That is true, but I also view the best of Oxborough’s pictures as outstanding arrangements of forms, employing blocks
of light and shadow as actively as those of color. It is revealing that, despite
his exasperation with the Minneapolis College of Art and Design all those
years ago, Oxborough still prizes the respect for abstraction he gained
there. The most compelling evidence, surely, lies in his management of
scenes of children, usually his own. In other artists’ oeuvres, this is territory littered with the landmines of kitsch and sentimentality, yet somehow
Self-Portrait in Sunlight
2012, Oil on linen, 46 x 30 in.
Private collection
FineArtConnoisseur.com | November/December 2012
Late Lunch
2012, Oil on linen, 12 x 16 in.
On view at Eleanor Ettinger Gallery, New York City
Oxborough avoids them not only by downplaying conventional prettiness, but also by activating our intuitive appreciation of the scene’s
formal qualities. A beautiful daughter also becomes a graceful pattern
of colors and reflections — neither prevails, so neither distracts.
TRADITION AND INNOVATION
Just as his compositions look improvised, so do Oxborough’s
surfaces. Underlying thick layers of swirling strokes, however, is a
rigorous plan, a deft drawing that sets the project in motion. This
emerges from an often lengthy process involving sketches, written
notes, color studies, and/or photographs. “Though my academic
training dictated only working from life,” he says, “I found that
approach too stifling.” Thus he dares to use a camera to capture
fast-changing subjects out in the world; because the resulting photos are just references, he sometimes puts live models into the poses
of people he has already photographed. Being present on site is still
Waiting
2012, Oil on linen, 22 x 24 in.
On view at Eleanor Ettinger Gallery, New York City
FineArtConnoisseur.com | November/December 2012
Two Bartenders
2012, Oil on linen, 36 x 48 in.
On view at Eleanor Ettinger Gallery, New York City
Fortunately, the exhibition this season features
one of Oxborough’s thrilling self-portraits, which,
like his rare portraits, often boldly confront the
viewer in ways his other compositions don’t. These
have earned honors at the competitions staged by
the National Portrait Galleries in both Washington
and London (see the June 2012 issue of Fine Art
Connoissseur), and surely deserve their own separate
exhibition someday.
It is a sign of our times that Oxborough’s superb
genre scenes are completely absent from the permanent collections of America’s (generally) antitraditional museums. The tide is turning slowly
toward realism, however, and this artist’s name will
surely appear toward the top of many wish lists when
acquisitive curators wake up to what they have been
missing. n
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paramount, though: “It’s the smells, the sounds, the size of a place, and
the air which fills your lungs that define an indelible experience.”
Because he is a perfectionist who reworks pictures constantly and
sometimes abandons them, it is not
surprising Oxborough gave up the
unforgiving medium of watercolor,
now focusing only on oils, applied
to expensive Belgian linen canvas.
Some pictures consume as many as
100 hours of work. Though some
look brilliant, all of Oxborough’s
pictures actually rely upon a palette of quite subdued tones. In this
regard, he follows in a continuum of
masters that started with Velázquez,
whom he calls the “first painter in
history to describe perspective with
light and atmosphere.” This torch
passed onward to his beloved Manet,
and of course to Degas, Sargent,
Sorolla, and Zorn. We see flickers of
these forerunners in Oxborough’s
work, yet even when the motif is
similar and the feeling timeless,
something lets us know this was
made in our time — be it a modern
piece of clothing, or perhaps that
lurking awareness of abstraction
gleaned during an unhappy first year
at art college.
PETER TRIPPI is editor of Fine Art Connoisseur.
At the Hotel
2012, Oil on linen, 36 x 46 in.
On view at Eleanor Ettinger Gallery,
New York City
FineArtConnoisseur.com | November/December 2012