MARCO ELLIOTT
Show: Viz City
Subject: Marco Elliott
Date of Interview: Sept. 1, 2017
Date of Broadcast: Wed. Sept. 13, 2017
Script: Sandy Brown Jensen
Sound: Terry Way
The Library isn’t just for reading any more, it’s for art, too. Plein air gouache artist Marco Elliott says, "It’s thrilling for me to be able to show my work in a space like the Eugene Library because I love to read. I think the public library is home for a lot of people, some of them who don’t have homes."
This show is called “Plein Air Paintings,” which means Marco painted these outdoors standing at his easel. What is it he loves about that instead, perhaps, of paintings from a photograph? He says painting from a photograph is too sterile for the intensity of his art. He says, "I like to be overwhelmed by the stimuli from the natural environment. "
Visitors to the beaches north of Florence will gladly recognize many of Marco’s scenes of familiar beaches and headlands, full of energy from the surf and sky. How does he know when he has found the right place to set up his easel and paint? "It’s a little bit like love at first sight. But I tend to focus on places that are somewhat remote, off the beaten path--places that give me a sense of infinity and a sense of eternity."
When I asked Marco what it means to him to be an artist, he remembered a Henry Miller quote, “To paint is to love again.” He feels this intense love or passion is what it means to be an artist. "When I paint, I am in a state of fusion or unity with Mother Nature."
“Plein Air Paintings by Marco Elliott” will be on display September and October on the second floor of the Downtown Library and it is free to all you Eugene readers and art lovers.
Viz City is co-produced by Terry Way and Sandy Brown Jensen.
