Short North exhibition leaves an impression

Julianne Kerver
Tue, 03 Mar 2020 02:45:10 +0000
Arts & Life, Fine Arts, News, art, arts, arts district, brandt-roberts, exhibition, expressionism, expressionist, galleries, gallery, Germany, landscape, nature, Ohio, oil, outdoors, paint, painting, plein air, plein air society, short north

Artist Mark Gingerich’s ‘Harmony in Green and Red’ to be featured at Brandt-Roberts Galleries’ “And all the Land was Swathed with Color.” Credit: Julianne Kerver | Lantern Reporter

A new exhibition in the Short North is walking its viewers through nature from the comfort of the indoors.

“And all the land was swathed with color,” an exhibition showcasing more than 20 oil paintings from Ohio-based artist Mark Gingerich, went on display Sunday at Brandt-Roberts Galleries in the Short North Arts District. The collection depicts domestic and international landscapes.

“The inspiration was my travels in Europe and in Ohio, here, so you’re gonna see some things from France, a little bit from Switzerland, and then I think there’s one from New York state,” Gingerich said.

Gingerich said he is a founding member of the Ohio Plein Air Society, a group of artists interested in painting outdoors. He called himself a contemporary American impressionist. Gingerich said impressionist work typically depicts nature and draws the viewer’s eye through strategic use of focus.

“The texture of the work itself is put on more spontaneously, either with a loaded brush or palette knife,” Gingerich said. “And so the work isn’t necessarily realist, but it’s impressionist, focusing on color and composition and the effect of light.”

Though he was born in Germany, Gingerich moved to Ohio at the age of 10, according to his website.

“The majority of my life, I’ve lived here in Ohio, so I think that’s the reason that Ohio has become something that I enjoy painting, because it’s familiar, and I like the variety of landscapes that you get here,” Gingerich said.

Michelle Brandt, owner of Brandt-Roberts Galleries, has worked with Gingerich for a decade and said he has continuously found romantic and beautiful interpretations of nature.

“He has such reverence for the landscape and whether rural Ohio or in his travels, and he’s so wonderfully able to capture that with paint,” Brandt said. “I think sometimes we can get comfortable with our own surroundings, and he has a way of taking those works or those views and elevating them.”

“And all the land was swathed with color” will be on display until March 29 at Brandt-Roberts Galleries at 642 N. High St. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday.