Summer is a time for rest and recreation. The great american vacation looms large on the horizon with countless families piling into the minivan heading to Yellowstone or Yosemite. The road trip is something unique to our culture celebrated by such diverse artists as Edward Hopper, Lee Friedlander, Walker Evans and Wayne Theibauld.

In his new series of paintings, Jamisen Ogg reports and reflects upon the many anomalies that dot the interstate bedecked landscape. Indeed, his sportsman like driving of brush over surface proclaims a painter of consummate skill. Cows, turbines, windmills, and gas station signs are located firmly within the landscape. There is a feeling of the perfect moment being isolated in both time and space.

The painter seems to have the knack of reproducing images from the road, in the way the Dutch recreated the still life in the 17th century. His surfaces glow and beckon the viewer into visual feasts of tone, shape, texture, and color.

The offbeat and the odd are pre-requirements for Ogg's compositions. Nowhere is this best revealed than in the work Public Safety. Orange Union Oil of California logo is set off against a sky blue field. The roundness of the object is tied down by a vertical line, which betrays a major clue about the subject. The line is an aerial and the object is an antenna topper.

All viewers could see this scene from their own car. Once the viewer understands that Jamisen Ogg's visions are all around us, his sly, deft sense of humor comes through loud and clear.

As this summer closes, we return to our lives refreshed, rested, and perhaps a little bit relieved. The painted images of Jamisen Ogg serve, as a coda in this setting to the landscape which is our memory.

Steven Michael Vroom

August 2000

Image List

All paintings created Summer 2000

©2000 Jamisen Ogg