John Harris

"Rocky River 9, " Realistic Oil Painting

2022

This original realistic oil painting on linen by John Harris captures a highly detailed, cropped, close-up view of water lightly rippling over r...

This original coastal oil painting on linen by John Harris captures a highly detailed view of rolling ocean waves crashing near a shoreline under ...

This original realistic oil painting on linen by John Harris features an earth-toned palette and captures a close-up view of water rushing over small rocks in a river bed. Toward the...

This original realistic oil painting on linen by John Harris captures a close up view of water rippling over rocks in a riverbed. Natural light ...

This original painting by John Harris captures a close up view of river rocks beneath lightly-rippling water in a horizontal format. The water reflects lightly off the moving water, ...

This abstract landscape painting by Elwood Howell features the artist's signature high horizon line, separating a textured, pale nearly grey foreground and a blue gradient sky. Along...

Quo Tendimus (Where are we going), is a glowing landscape with figures gathering at a summit before a brilliantly abstracted sky. The compelling and highly contemporary dramatic suns...

"Poppies, Jegun" is a contemporary Impressionist painting, painted en plein air in rural France. Tina Orsolic Dalessio is a figurative painter born and raised in Zagreb, Croatia. Sh...

Annamarie Dzendrowskyj Twilight – Poland I Signed by the artist Original oil painting on linen Canvas size: H 38cm x W 28 cm Please note that insitu images are purely an indication o...

Antique American modernist street scene oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Image size, 29L x 20H.

Antique American modernist street scene oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Image size, 30L x 20H.

"In the series “This is a real place!” I was fascinated by how the underside of the pier at Saint Simons Island, GA was like a readymade collage. The way the pilings and rails divide and frame the spaces between them looks artificially imposed on the scene until you notice the way the waves bounce off the pilings and the railings cast shadows on the water. In some iterations, I chose to simplify the structures of the pier and lighten the values so that it would emphasize the detail in the water. Likewise, I omitted a family of starlings and their droppings in favor of highlighting the geometry of the architecture and the colors and patterns of the water. Making paintings in a series allows me to investigate the results of making different decisions about an image. How I crop or stylize it, the manner in which I apply the paint, what gets included or excluded all add shades of meaning to each piece. Additionally, depictions of the same subject in different weather, seasons, times of day, and tides allows me a deeper understanding. I notice more relationships, colors, and details every time I paint the subject. Every painting is a pile of decisions. Playing with removing more and more details to see what is truly important sometimes improves the painting. The fewer elements you include in an image, the more each one means, and the more important it is to get each thing perfect. At times I like to paint every single detail I can find in a scene, and other times I feel like the unadorned components are sufficient to hold each other in a satisfying composition. I often add simplified shapes to my paintings to highlight the presence of absence or to heighten the importance of each area by creating stark visual contrasts. ⁠The physicality of the paint also plays a role. I used highly textured, thickly applied paint to construct the solid structural elements, and luminous layers of thinly glazed paint for the delicate linework and subtle blending of the water." - Brooke Lanier...