Published on: June 26, 2024
Montana-based painter Paul Blumenthal creates oil and watercolor landscapes that merge keen observation with heartfelt emotional expression. His work reflects a deep love for the world. With a background in architecture, Blumenthal began his artistic journey sketching landscapes and buildings during his travels in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. These sketches evolved into detailed studies on tablets and eventually into vibrant watercolors.
Currently, he focuses on both real and imagined landscapes, capturing their essence through uninhibited observation. Moving beyond realism, his recent works express raw emotion, blending painting and drawing to prioritize expression. Whether depicting Montana’s mountains or the Israeli desert, his art seeks to touch the heart and inspire a sense of wonder.
What draws you to paint landscapes and how do you decide which to focus on for a particular piece?
I have drawn landscapes since I was a child. What inspires me to look at a view comes after I’ve repeatedly observed a place. I see something in a different light, so to speak.
Judean Desert, featured in the Summer City Idyll exhibition at Agora Gallery, was realized during your residency in Israel in the 1990s. How has that experience influenced your artistic practice and how does that tie into your work today?
My artist residency at the Arad Arts Project influenced my work in many ways. It allowed me to spend more time doing studies, a place to work, and a fellowship of artists. This allowed me to interpret rather than just observe my surroundings. It is sometimes a struggle for me to paint without destructive self-criticism. My mantra is “Don’t think; paint”
Your art and lifestyle in Montana reflect a deep connection to nature. Can you describe this relationship and the meaning it holds for you in connection to your artistic practice?
Nature is perfect to me, and I feel a sense of peace and belonging like I am doing something right whether running a river, climbing a peak, or drawing. After drawing clichéd views of spectacular vistas, I discovered something “better”; something that I didn’t see before.
Over the years, your approach to painting has become more instinctive. How do you balance intuition and on site observation in your work?
For most of my life, I have been consumed by honest observation; learning how things go together. Now, I’m driven to create compositions following my intuition and learning to do what the painting tells me to do, rather than knowing what a tree “looks like” for instance. I still want to understand the world, but the art has to stand on its own without reference to something else.
When you began integrating emotions into your creative process, did you find yourself drawn to one medium over others?
My work has had emotional content since I was a child. I believe I’m painting with oil since I am not designing buildings. I believe oil paintings are objects not dissimilar to buildings. They can have depth, transparency, mass, weight, and gesture. I want to make paintings.
How conscious are you of your potential viewers when making your pieces?
I paint and draw because I have to; not because I want to. Hopefully, there is some universality in my work, and it speaks to people. An old artist, one year older than me, told me that my work says “Hey, look at me.” I hope it is more than my therapy.
What are you working on right now?
I just completed two 24” x 36” oils that I call word paintings. One is in English, The Emancipation Proclamation, and the other in Hebrew, Israel Lives. I’m interested in pushing paint around, drawing with paint, crafting, creating form, space, values… to reinforce a message. I am working on smaller 12” x 16” to 12” x 24” still-lifes that are landscapes or landscapes that are still-lifes; I’m not sure which. I consider them problems that I try to solve in a short period of time.