In The Moment

 There is something very familiar about the world that Gage Opdenbrouw paints. In some sense, that is surprising, because his subjects are often blocked in or blurred and the figures he paints generally have blank or minimal features. But somehow—perhaps by getting the atmosphere just right—Opdenbrouw manages to consistently generate images that feel personal to anyone who looks carefully enough. What his paintings lack in specificity they more than make up for in mood. 

Opdenbrouw’s recent paintings have their roots in what the artist says are “pretty traditional” concerns. Working with the basic formal elements—light, space, color and form—Opdenbrouw tries to relocate what might otherwise be unremarkable images into an evocative zone. Inclined to break down and simplify form, Opdenbrouw tries to suggest the transitory nature of life and experience by using varied brushwork to generate visual poetry. Working both from observation and from old photo albums, Opdenbrouw is on the lookout for emotional cues, especially subtle ones. Opdenbrouw has a great eye for gesture and likeness and is, in many respects, an aesthetic descendent of Cezanne in the sense that the sensations in his work are the natural result of abstracting those things.

By John Seed