Of Color and Light and Life
by Bernie Monegain
Painter, historian, collector, Keith Oehmig expresses his joy in life-in what he observes all around him-in paintings infused with luminous color and light-color and light that, it seems, he is always absorbing.
He might be sailing with friends in Middle Bay off Brunswick, where he lives, and he will be, as he put it, "memorizing paintings." He might be eating a take-out shrimp supper with his wife along the shoreline, not far from home, observing the gulls - memorizing paintings. Driving to work or to the beach on Maine's coastal Route 1, he mav be taken by the way the light falls on a marsh at low tide. He'll remember it --forlater.
When he does sit down to paint, the memory translates into a scene that is lush with color, sizzling with light. There are no cool wintry scenes in Oehmig's repertoire.
Collection of Nels and Betty Nelson, Hilton Head, South Carolina
Bluer than blue
There are times when Oehmig sketches or paints on site, but even then his paintings are not exact representations of the scene before him. They are more the impression that the scene evokes than the scene itself. How else to account for a blue that is bluer than blue?
"I'm not just painting what I see," Oehmig said. "I'm painting what I remember, what's important to me.”
Nature has always been important to him. In his most recent work, the ocean takes center stage as in his paintings of the dockside at Camden Harbor or the Goslings, a set of islands at the mouth of Middle Bay.
Then there are the frames--three-inch wide, carved and gilded with gold leaf.
"I have a great admiration for European Impressionists," he said, "and their paintings were always, in big gold frames.
Oehmig's color was not always this intense. Years ago he used more earth tones and lighter shades of blue. "I used to have a much more subdued sense of color," he said. But, as he gained more confidence, he became bolder, freer in his work.
Collection of Todd Johnson, Orlando, Florida
Painter and collector
Oehmig spoke of life and of painting at his Wiscasset Bay Gallery, where he sells his own paintings and those of others, and where he reserves a room to display the old landscape paintings he collects and sells. That's the art historian in him. He bought his first old painting the first summer he was out of college and working at a gallery in Portland, Ore. He's been collecting since.
He opened his own gallery, now in its 12th year, when he was 21. He wanted a place to show his work and later his collection. The second year after he moved the gallery from Front Street in Bath to Wiscasset he quadrupled his sales. He credits his business success to a rebounding economy and to repeat business. "Fifty or 60 percent of my customers come back and buy something the next year," he said.
His customers are from all over the country, from Canada and some from Europe. Californians and Floridians seem to have a particular affinity for his work, he said, perhaps because ofthe light. Oehmig keeps the gallery open from May to October. Even then, he tries to paint every day. In recent years, he's spent the winter in Florida, painting.
Someday he would like to have the financial freedom to paint full time year-round. His inspiration is "backlogged" he said. But for now he enjoys meeting the people who buy his work. He likes knowing where the painting is going. And the customers like meeting the artist, he said.
Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Dennis McCarthy, Fairfield Connecticut
Tennessee routes
Oehmig, 33, grew up in Chattanooga, Tenn., where his grandfather, who was originally from Houlton, Maine, had transplanted himself and opened a chain of five-and-dime stores. When Oehmig was 10, his family started coming to Maine for summer vacations. By the time he was a freshman in college, his father had sold his business, and the entire family (Oehmig has two brothers and a sister) moved to Maine.
While not artists themselves, Oehmig's parents always had an interest in art, Oehmig said, and they encouraged his artistic bent.
At Principia College in Elsah, Ill., his mother's alma mater, Oehmig studied art and art history and developed an appreciation for landscape painting, for his own and for studying those of the past. It was there that he met his wife, Julia who is curator of the Joshua L. Chamberlain Museum in Brunswick.
Oehmig said that Julia tells him that she sees him in his paintings. That pleases him. He hopes it's true also for others who see his work.
"I want to evoke a certain emotion, a certain connectedness between my painting and the viewer," Oehmig said. "I guess the really important things that attract me are the color and light." "I like the joy of life to come through in my paintings.”
Bernie Monegain is a Senior Staff Writer at The Times Record, Brunswick, Maine