Alan Paine Radebaugh
Albuquerque, NM
COWPATH 5
oil on linen panel
9" x 12"
2013
$1200
About
An American artist, born in Boston and raised in Maine and New York, Alan Paine Radebaugh left New England in 1973. He lived and worked throughout the western United States for five years before settling in New Mexico in 1979. He returns each year to work in Maine and regularly spends two to six weeks drawing and painting in Canada. He began painting in oils as a child. In his early teens, he created large oil abstracts on his bedroom walls and ceiling. He studied photography and jewelry making at Wooster College, designed and crafted sculptural art furniture for ten years, and received a BFA in printmaking from the University of New Mexico. Oil paint has been his primary medium for the last 35 years.
In 2008 he began his artistic project, Ghost of Sea. This Project focused on the Interior Plains of Canada and the Great Plains of the United States. Radebaugh traveled from the Rockies to the Ohio River Valley and from the Gulf of Mexico to northern Canada. One of the more memorable journeys was two weeks on the Arctic Ocean in Inuvik, Northwest Territories. In 2020 he completed Ghost of Sea, a 12-year Project. Since 2009, Radebaugh has shown this work in 9 solo exhibitions as well as many group exhibitions.
Artist Statement
I painted the strata and flora of the Great Plains of the United States and the Interior Plains of Canada from 2008--2020. Since my first exposure to the Plains 50 years ago, I have imagined the sea rolling over this land--the waves, massive and powerful, stretching in all directions for millions of years, pounding over a seabed of silt and rocks. I have looked out over these vast open spaces and seen the sea, a sea that 100 million years ago stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean and from the Rockies to east of the Mississippi River. My awe of and fascination with the geological history of 100 million years influences my paintings of the strata and flora of today’s Plains.
I have driven many one- and two-lane roads winding through this area. Driving, camping, walking, drawing, and photographing for days or weeks on the road, I return to my studio in Albuquerque to paint. I re-drew sketches onto canvasses, often combining more than one sketch on a canvas. However, the act of painting itself guides me more than the sketch does. The sketch is my starting point. Working in oils on canvas or linen, I allow the process of painting and the painting itself to determine the final product.
I paint because moving paint around on a canvas brings me pure joy. I paint abstract and representational landscapes because I hope that if viewers look closely at my paintings and see beauty, they will look closely at nature and seeing even more beauty will strive to protect these fragile places.
Art from Alan Paine Radebaugh in other TAAC exhibitions