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"Looking At" is a periodic series of posts observing the work of other artists,

 especially those that have had an impact on my own work and the way I look at the world.

Michael Brophy's paintings and mine have a few things in common. We both paint in what might be called a loose, slightly stylized realism. The subject matter is predominantly, but not exclusively, landscape. Both of us frequently combine those landscapes with other symbolic elements and metaphors that suggest a kind of storytelling. But the story is open ended, not narrative. Inferences are suggested but conclusions are not.

"Suburb of the sublime" 2024, oil on canvas 78" x 126"

Michael found some success early on with his paintings of clearcuts just as the timber wars of the 1980s were garnering national attention. The power of his work stems in part from the fact that he's not trying to tell the viewer what to think. He's simply making observations and drawing connections, often with the same wry humor that riddles his conversation. Northwest forests are a subject matter he has returned to again and again over the last 40 years. He has painted a lot of other subjects as well, from the high desert and the northwest coast to massive stacks of shipping containers and the Hanford Nuclear site. But his work almost never strays outside of Oregon. The cliché advice for writers is "write what you know". It's apt for any artist really. And Michael knows Oregon. Better than anyone I know. But then, he was born here. I'm still a newcomer, who arrived a mere 24 years ago.

"Night Truck" 2007 oil on canvas 74" X 80"

Michael and I know each other personally. I introduced myself  after one of his shows in Portland at Russo/Lee Gallery. We now get together and talk art, and whatever else, about once a year. Our conversations are always effortless despite their infrequency. Maybe it's the shared aesthetic in our work. Maybe it's a similar way of looking at the world. Maybe it's just because he's a friendly easy-going person with a lot on his mind. At any rate we're probably due for another meet up.

"Red Door" 2022 oil on canvas 78" x 84"

I've certainly been influenced by his work, though our interests and styles were aligned before either of us had ever heard of the other. Artists of all stripes often compliment each other by borrowing or outright stealing ideas from others. Of course we mix those ideas up with our own enough that they're not just rip-offs or copies (although this unfortunately happens too). I went through a bit of a Brophy-esque stage when I started obsessing over wildfire and fossil fuels. I travelled around the state sketching and photographing areas burned by wildfire and drove out to Oregon's only coal fired power plant where the plant manager gave me a tour. My paintings of the massive cryptic machinery there were the sort of thing Michael might do .

"Reach: Pay" 2024, oil on canvas 78" x 84"

His most recent project, a series of monumental canvases, explores the area around the Hanford Nuclear facilities. He has a lot to say about the fraught history there but, as usual, his work does not lecture or browbeat. Michael has a way of looking at things both mundane and extraordinary with the same sort of puzzled wonder, a bemused disbelief that the world is the way it is. So, wether he is showing us places of profound tragedy like Hanford, or something as ordinary as the back of truck on the road at night, it's worth your time to see the world through his eyes.