2021 Pacific Northwest Plein Air in the Columbia Gorge Paint-Off and Exhibition Announces Winners
First Place and Friends of the Gorge Award Runner-Up: Ken Klos (Portland, OR), Catherine Creek—Upriver, oil on canvas, 16 x 20. Source. Photo Credit: David Burbach photography
Friends of The Gorge and Maryhill Museum of Art have announced the winners of the 15th annual Pacific Northwest Plein Air in the Columbia Gorge outdoor painting contest. The contest challenges artists to paint in the outdoors and tests their skills at coping with the heat, cold, and other elements. Ken Klose and Elo Wobig of Portland Oregon, took home several awards for their paintings. Artworks made during the competition are for sale and will be displayed at Maryhill through August 28.
Ken Klos took first place in the paint-out and was runner-up award for the Friends of the Columbia Gorge Award. Klos’s winning painting “Catherine Creek—Upriver” features an eastern view of the Columbia River at sunrise.
"The trick to Plein air painting is to catch in your memory right away the mood, to catch the scene’s essence, because you know in half an hour it will look different," Klos said. Klos added that he got the shapes and shadows down right away and as the light changed relied on memory to fill in the rest to best capture the sunrise scene.
Friends of the Gorge Award and Museum Purchase Award: Elo Wobig (Portland, OR), Remembering Rowena, oil, 11 x 14. This year marks the second time Friends has partnered with Maryhill to award a ribbon in the competition. Source. Photo Credit: David Burbach photography
Elo Wobig of Portland, Oregon, was selected as the winner of the Friends of the Columbia Gorge Ribbon and a Museum Purchase award.
Wobig's winning oil painting "Opaline Sunset" features a westward sunset view of the Columbia River, the Hood River Bridge, and the town of White Salmon, Washington.
"It's important for me to paint where I'm from and where I've lived," said 2021 Friends Ribbon winner and noted Portland-area painter Wobig. "I don’t have to go very far to find incredible beauty in the Gorge."
"When I’m doing a sunset, I’m painting as fast as I can," Wobig said. "It’s a magical headspace to be in because you’re not thinking about anything else and you don’t have time to paint everything because the colors keep evolving moment by moment. You can’t predict a sunset but you know it’s a beautiful view in the Gorge for a sunset anytime."
2021 Pacific Northwest Plein Air in the Columbia Gorge Photo Gallery
Award Winners and Runners Up
o First Place: Ken Klos (Portland, Oregon)
o Second Place: Tracy Leagjeld (Portland) Third Place: Carole-Gray Weihman (Penngrove, California)
o Honorable Mentions: Scott Gellatly (Portland); Anton Pavlenko (Happy Valley, Oregon); Erik Sandgren (Portland); and Mark Shasha (Swampscott, Massachusetts)
o Best Sky: Aaron Cordell Johnson (Moscow, Idaho)
o Best Mountain: Thomas Jefferson Kitts (Portland)
o Best Water: Yong Hong Zhong (Lake Oswego, Oregon)
o Best Cultural Element: Katy Ann Fox (Driggs, Idaho)
o National Scenic Area Award: Ken Klos
o Friends of the Columbia Gorge Award: Elo Wobig (Portland); Runner-Up: Ken Klos; Honorable Mention: Erik Sandgren
o Maryhill Award: Paul Zegers (Roseburg, Oregon)
o Museum Purchase Awards: Aaron Cordell Johnson; Kristina Sellers (Gresham, Oregon); Elo Wobig.
Paintings from the Plein Air event will remain on view and available for purchase at Maryhill until August 28 in the Event Sales Gallery in the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust Education Center. Proceeds support Maryhill Museum of Art. As work is sold and removed, other work created during the paint-out will replace it.
About Pacific Northwest Plein Air in the Columbia Gorge
Hood River artist Cathleen Rehfeld launched the first Pacific Northwest plein air gathering and competition in 2006. Rehfeld envisioned that it would be a way to deepen and celebrate the connection between art and nature in the gorge.
The annual paint-out attracts painters from across the country to capture the Gorge's stunning light and inspiring vistas.
The Maryhill-Friends community partnership seeks to “collectively build on previous individual efforts by both organizations and to illustrate the Gorge's beauty and its fragility.”
"We are pleased to continue our collaboration with Friends of the Columbia Gorge," said Steve Grafe, curator of art at Maryhill. "Friends and Maryhill are both Gorge-focused and we agree that responsible and visionary management of the region is advantageous to both local residents and those who travel from near and far to experience its unique natural and cultural wonders."
"I think there is a natural affinity between the stewardship of arts and culture and environmental communities," Friends' board member and 2021 ribbon judge Lisa Berkson Platt said. "How much richer is our understanding of where we live and what we must care for when we see it through the eyes of an artist? The Pacific Northwest Plein Air competition is a fantastic way for Friends to broaden our support for Gorge partners and to create new ways to present our mission to the public," Platt added.
ABOUT FRIENDS OF THE COLUMBIA GORGE
Friends of the Columbia Gorge is a nonprofit organization with over 6,000 members dedicated to protecting and enhancing the scenic, natural, cultural, and recreational resources of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Friends maintains offices in Portland, Oregon, as well as in two locations based in the Gorge -- Hood River, Oregon, and Washougal, Washington. Learn more: gorgefriends.org
ABOUT MARYHILL MUSEUM OF ART
Housed in a glorious Beaux Arts mansion on 5,300 acres high above the Columbia River, Maryhill Museum of Art opened to the public May 13, 1940 and today remains one of the Pacific Northwest’s most enchanting cultural destinations. The museum was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and was listed as an official site of the National Historic Lewis and Clark Trail in 2001. Learn more: maryhillmuseum.org
