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Paintings

The "isms" are long dead. Very few artists today would in all earnestness claim be a cubist, a classicist, impressionist, modernism, postmodernist or any other -ist from the long list of art movements of the last century or so. But if you still want to call my art something, I guess you could perhaps call it californism – the painting of California in all its aspects of breathtaking beauty and wonderful whimsy.

Regardless of where in the landscape of art fashion one would place these paintings, they are all oil paintings on canvas, produced using classic techniques and materials.

Photo: The artist hard at work.

I like to think that my paintings celebrate the intrinsic beauty of California – the soft rolling hills, the majestic oak trees, the breathtaking vistas. Painting means exploring and playing with light itself, and no other place in the world has more of it than sunny California.

I'm often asked what's with the cows, however. As I have explained somewhere else, they came on their own initiative, at first only volunteering to provide some extra life and color to my landscape paintings.

I had often debated with myself whether to include people with my trees and hills and golden grass, but in the end always decided against it. People tends to grab all the attention in a picture. We know that, because we're people, too. And every time we see a person depicted, we immediately check that person out. Is it a man or a woman? Old or young? Is it hiker, a biker, or maybe a farmworker? Then we start creating stories. Where is the hiker going? Where do the biker come from? Does the farmworker have documentation? And so on. Eventually, the serene landscape gets lost in endless stories and speculations, because everything people looks at turns into a mirror.

Surfing Cows

When the cows presented themselves, I immediately saw several good reasons to include them in my landscapes. First, they belong among grass and trees – on any drive through rural Northern California you can't fail to spot a sampling on every other hilltop. Second, they are benign and good natured, and third, they never make a nuisance of themselves – at least that's what I thought. But to my surprise, once in the picture, the cows rapidly took over, casting themselves as stars, reducing landscapes to second fiddle. In other words, behaving just like people. Far from the humble producers of dairy products I thought they were, my cows turned out to be gutsy girls with plenty of pluck and attitude.

Since then, my cows have branched out in every direction. They have taken up music, become wine connoisseurs, barnstorming pilots, they even play ice hockey and football, and today they no longer need a landscape painting as a backdrop for their active life.

Football Cows

Success never comes without a struggle, however. There has been setbacks, of course. Many an art patron complained that real girls do not play football or get involved in such male-dominated actities as ice hockey. Well, too bad, because my cows did. There was nothing I could do to change that. People also complained about the udders. Some thought it looked like male organs of procreation. And even I myself had complaints. I didn't like the cows' tails, and the horns made the top of the cows' heads messy and diabolical.

Wine Connoisseaurs.

Eventually, the tails, horns and udders were shed. The first two for clarity's sake, the last in order not to needlessly offend people's sensibilities. My cows were now dehorned meat producers instead of horned milk cows. But that mattered little, as their basic personalities remained intact.

"The Moo". Reenactment of the famous painting by Edvard Munch with the San Francisco Bay in the background.

Some might say that the limelight ruined my cows, that the change from rustic ruminators to symbols of Silicon Valley went to their heads. I don't think so. Cows have led a secret life since the dawn of time, and I'm not the only one to peek behind the veil. The cartoonist Gary Larson once drew cows having a BBQ out in the fields, and only acting like cows when the look-out warned of cars approaching. So, there you are.