A life of vision
Gibbons retrospective looks back at 40 years of painting around the world
“This man has painted a land we all know and love, giving it back to us in a form we can understand”
— Mark O. Hatfield, Oregon Senator
During Toledo’s return to the First Weekend art event, the Yaquina River Museum of Art is debuting a three-month exhibition of 20 oil paintings by renowned Oregon artist the late Michael Gibbons, beginning on Saturday, Nov. 7.
These works, most of which have never been exhibited, represent a legacy that spans more than 40 years and have been generously loaned to the museum from the private Gibbons collection. Representative works from England, Ireland, France, Mexico, Florida, California, Arizona and Oregon will be on view for three months.
Gibbons was drawn to places with personal spiritual significance; where he could play with color and texture to make works that are peaceful, yet exciting and rewarding.
Born in Portland in 1943 as a fifth generation Oregonian, Gibbons painted the Oregon landscape for 55 years. His death on July 2, 2020, was a significant loss for his family, friends, the regional art community and collectors around the world. His focus was working in a signature style to create intimate views of the ever-changing Northwest landscape. Yet, he also traveled around the world to seek out landscapes and capture their unique “voice.”
From 1998 to 2007, he maintained a studio and home in Tubac, Arizona; an hour south of Tucson. Throughout those years, he created a body of work that reflected his vision and the unique characteristics of the desert, and cultivated hundreds of collectors who loved his gift of capturing the light of the Southwest while choosing common and simple desert scenes. There he took his skills and abilities out of the studio to discover the power of painting outdoors, with no barriers between his artistic inspirations and the canvases.
Gibbons also developed important associations with various museums, galleries and collectors. He exhibited in group shows at the Phippen Museum in Prescott and the Tucson Museum of Art and participated in yearly regional plein air events.
His style has been described as strong and energetic, yet balanced with a gentle sensitivity to color and form and a carefully expressed sense of design. His usually loose brushwork enabled him to keep his detailing of a scene minimal. He was most interested in painting as a way to capture a moment in time.
As a plein art artist, Gibbons used a mobile studio with very few creature comforts. But everything he could want and need was there: his unique vision and nature.
Preferring to work alone, Gibbons isolated himself among trees and waterways, desert sands and adobe architecture, the Everglades, ancient Medieval churches and coastal flowers — places where he could listen for the voice of the land. He used the painter’s tools to give substance to that voice and spirit by communicating space, color, form and light through his innate talent and refined execution.
“I paint whatever moves me.” he said. “When I’m painting in nature, it is the divine experience of the land that feeds my inspiration. What is painted is of secondary importance; how it is painted is the critical aspect. It is in the execution of the painting that the possibility of interaction with it takes place.”
The retrospective will run through Jan. 31 at the Yaquina River Museum of Art, 151 NE Alder Street, Toledo, open Friday, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 pm. For more information, go to www.yaquinarivermuseumofart.org or call 541-336-1907.