Pacific Northwest Paintings

The practice of painting in series has been a hallmark of Brian Mahieu’s work from the beginning. He likes to return to the same spot over days, seasons and years to understand its essence and changeability.

Nightfall at—Ebey’s Landing II
August 17, 2017 9:14 pm
Plein air oil on linen
40 x 30 inches

Whidbey Island

Ebey’s Landing was the natural choice for his first series of paintings on Whidbey Island. The unspoiled landscape, lack of human structures, deep vistas, and gentle collision of land and sea and sky offer endless motifs for painting the ever-changing light and weather conditions.

It is a thrill to paint the iridescent sunsets as otters trundle across the beach and eagles hunt on the warm updrafts, the calls of seagulls in my ears and the scent of firs and spruce and kelp on the wind. Those are inputs that I cannot get in the sterile, environment of a studio.