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View more works by Marc Bohne
Marc Bohne (b. 1955) A Seattle painter, Marc Bohne remains faithful to his focus on landscape images that become stories of the West. Plein air painting is the love of his artistic life. Sojourns into the countryside in Eastern Washington, Utah, North and South Dakota, Utah, New Mexico, and other Western locales, have deeply influenced his sense of light and composition.
Bohne's images are distinguished by a truthful representation of the scenes he bears witness to, while including areas of less detail that provide mystery. His images often are bold enough to pull the viewer toward them as an invitation to become part of the landscape. In recent years Bohne's expertise with subtle oil glazing and value changes has added new depth while never seeming contrived. His "signature" remains the strong, easily recognizable images laced with unknowable shadows and morning mist.
Whether working on panel or canvas, Marc Bohne builds his paintings starting with a pencil drawing covered by several layers of gesso. Next, he adds gossamer glazes of translucent and opaque oil pigments applied with a brush measuring 1/16 of an inch thick. The resulting surface richness, which radiates through as many as twenty layers of paint, has a visceral impact that viewers can also experience in "layers."
"I love paint," Bohne enthuses. "If you look closely at the paintings, you see layers of colors. Step back a bit and the layers meld into abstract textures and patterns of light and dark. Step further back and a landscape subject emerges. People bring their own associative content to the landscapes, but to me they are dialogues between the visual, tactile, sensual, intellectual and emotional experiences I had in a place."
Bohne's "places" are ordinary locations, enlivened by passing clouds or heavy atmosphere. He discovers them by prowling around natural settings near his home in Seattle, Washington, or during road trips that last up to four weeks. His home on wheels is a Ford E150 van that has 300,000 miles, outfitted with a sleeping berth so he can spend as much time in a spot as necessary.
"I return to some locations repeatedly," he says. "Other times, I glimpse something on the side of the road and hunt it down. The objective is to disconnect or minimize myself so that I see deeper into the layers of the landscape, uncovering its harmonies and dissonances, the physical and spiritual tensions. When a certain lighting effect resonates with me, I take photographs and describe the experience in my journal."
Back in his Saltmine Studio located on the north end of Lake Washington, Bohne lets these experiences "condense, bubble and stew." His intention is not to document actual topography but rather to reprocess his experience into universal terrain. Eschewing panoramas and dramatic contrasts, he is drawn to quiet idylls etched in narrow ranges of chroma and value.
Conversely, the range of sizes in Bohne's oeuvre is wide. Large paintings, such as Heartland, measure 36 by 36 inches, while small ones such as Afternoon Sky, are a mere 7 by 6 inches. "The small paintings are fun because they don't require as much information. I like their immediacy," he says.
Trees appear in just about all of Bohne's landscapes. Whether single as in Cattlegaurd, or massed into a windbreak, such as those in Rabbits Hideout, trees add personality to the scene, as well as guiding the viewer's eye throughout the landscape.
Bohne says that trees are neither conscious additions nor metaphors. Nonetheless, he offers an anecdote about growing up in El Paso, Texas, where his father was stationed at Fort Bliss and where deciduous trees are rare and elusive. "My parents paid homage to their favorite parts of the country by planting trees that transformed our yard into an oasis. We had two huge mulberries. My brothers and I considered them cool, private retreats for building forts and suspending ourselves from ropes. We also rode our bikes into the canyons of nearby Franklin Mountains, where we looked for cottonwood trees nourished by springs."
As a youngster, Bohne learned to draw by copying caricaturists such as Mort Drucker, whom he considers a master of nuance. He credits his mother with giving him the feedback he needed to pursue art at Columbia College, Missouri, where he received his BFA in 1977. For more than a decade, Bohne relegated painting to an avocation as he worked in a variety of jobs, including finish carpentry. In the mid 1990s, he committed to art full time, affirming the transition by taking a two-month bike trip throughout England and his great-grandfather's homeland, Ireland. The Irish countryside, defined by patchwork fields, hedgerows and endless shades of green, provided Bohne with further inspiration.
In the fall of 2005, Bohne returned to Ireland on fellowship from the Ballinglen Arts Foundation. He spent two months in County Mayo on the northwest coast. While there, he kept an "Ireland Diary" (published on his web site), which includes these snippets: "Wind is a feature of this landscape. The trees and shrubbery hug the ground on the coast, and in case a tree grows a bit too high, the wind shapes it into a curve, away from the prevailing source. You wake up about 3 a.m., make a cup of tea and stand outside in your bare feet with the wet warm Irish grass between your toes, and above you is a firmament that is expansive and brilliant the likes of which no urbanite is familiar."
In conversation, Bohne shies away from words tinged with romance. In his writings, as with the paintings, however, he reveals that added layer of himself.
Artist Bio
Marc Bohne was born in 1955, in El Paso, Texas. He lived in West Texas until he left for Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri, where he received his BFA in painting in 1977.
From the late 1970s until the mid-1990s, Marc changed careers several times, from resort administration to wilderness rescue to medicine, and finally, to design-build carpentry. His artwork remained a serious pastime.
"I tried a lot of things, trying to find my path. I thought painting was too self-centered, and I should work on something that was bigger and of more use to humanity. I couldn't give myself permission to just paint. In the end I learned that there is no greater thing I can do but be true to myself, and give the world my best, whatever that may be."
In 1994 Marc rented studio space in his present studio building in Seattle, Washington. He has been painting professionally ever since, and is often called a "painter's painter" by other artists. Marc's landscapes are represented in prominent collections from Paris to Los Angeles, and in fine galleries in New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, New York, California, and Washington.
Selected Collections - Private and Corporate
Bill Gates, Seattle, WA
David Soloman, Greenwich, CT
Brown-Forman Corporation, Louisville, KY
Chatelain Architects, Washington, D.C.
Hickman Design Associates, Chicago, IL
Michael Moore, El Paso Energy Corporation, Washington, D.C.
Bruce Stewart, Beverly Hills, CA
Glen Harrison, G.H. Petroleum Consultants, Austin, TX
Mr. & Mrs. Norbert Gaelen, Short Hills, NJ
Loretta Pate, Ennis, TX
Mr. & Mrs. Harald Rettig, Maisprach, Switzerland
Victoria Price, Santa Fe, NM
Bruce Rauner, GTCR, Chicago, IL
Allen Goode, Houston's Restaurants, Phoenix, AZ
Eric Weber, Beverly Hills, CA
Walt Zifkin, Hollywood, CA
Selected Exhibitions
The Saltmine Gallery, Solo Exhibition, Seattle, WA (Studio Gallery, by invitation, Dec. 2001)
Miniatures '2001 (Oct.) The Albuquerque Museum Foundation, Albuquerque, NM (by
invitation)
Wyoming Landscapes, Group Exhibition, Center Street Gallery, Jackson, WY (Sep. 2001)
Miniatures '2001(Oct.) Howard/Mandville Gallery, Kirkland, WA (by invitation)
The American Landscape, Howard/Mandville Gallery, Kirkland, WA (May, 2001)
Gail Harvey Gallery, Solo Exhibition, Santa Monica, CA (April, 2001)
Howard/Mandville Gallery, Group Exhibition, Kirkland, WA (Feb, 2001)
Miniatures '2000 (Oct. 2000), The Albuquerque Museum Foundation, Albuquerque, NM (by
invitation)
The Fountainhead Gallery, Group Exhibition, Seattle, WA (June 2000)
Expressions West, Coos Art Museum, Coos Bay, Oregon (May, 2000)
8th National Art Exhibition, Northern Colorado Artist Association (April, 2000), Fort Collins,
CO
Gail Harvey Gallery, Group Exhibition, Santa Monica, CA (Feb 2000)
Miniatures '99 (Oct. 1999), The Albuquerque Museum Foundation, Albuquerque, NM (by
invitation)
Meyer East Gallery(formerly Munson Gallery), Solo Exhibition, Santa Fe, New Mexico (July, 1999)
Expressions West, Coos Art Museum, Coos Bay, Oregon (May, 1999)
7th National Art Exhibition, Northern Colorado Artist Assoc.(April, 1999), Fort Collins, CO
Meyer East Gallery(formerly Munson Gallery), Group Exhibition (Nov. 1998), Santa Fe, NM
Kimzey Miller Gallery, Solo Exhibition (Oct. 1998), Seattle, WA
Miniatures '98 (Oct. 1998), The Albuquerque Museum Foundation, Albuquerque, NM (by
invitation)
Rebirth & Re-growth: Yellowstone Ten Years After the Fire, Jack Dennis' Wyoming Gallery,
Jackson, WY
Masters in Montana, 1998, Chaparral Fine Art, Bozeman, MT (by invitation)
18th Annual Northwest International Art Competition, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA
Kimzey Miller Gallery, Group Exhibition, 1997, Seattle, WA
Kimzey Miller Gallery, Annual Group Exhibition, 1997, Seattle, WA
The Fountainhead Gallery, Group Exhibition, 1997, Seattle, WA
National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society: Exhibit '97, Columbia College, Osage Beach, MO
6th National Art Exhibition, Northern Colorado Artist Association, Fort Collins, CO
National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society: Exhibit '96, Columbia College, Osage Beach, MO
16th Annual Northwest Intl. Art Competition, 1996, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA
Education
1977 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting, Columbia College, Columbia, MO
1975 Associate in Arts, Columbia College, Columbia, MO
Awards and Honors
First Place, Expressions West, Coos Bay, Oregon
Best of Show, 8th National Art Exhibition, Northern Colorado Artist Association
Juror's Award, 18th Annual Northwest International Art Competition
Juror's Award, 16th Annual Northwest International Art Competition
Merit Award, 6th National Art Exhibition, Northern Colorado Artist Association
Merit Award, National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society: Exhibit '96
Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities, 1977
Miller Trustee Scholarship and Europe Tour, 1976-77
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