”It’s pure joy for me to paint Wisconsin farms and landscapes. I’m living my dream,” Georgene Pomplun explains, setting-up her easel next to busy State Highway 92 just up the road from her favorite subject. ”I am primarily a landscape painter; plein air is my preferred way to go. Plein air means outdoors, and I live in a beautiful part of the world which affords me a painting at every turn.”
WFA’s 2008 commissioned artist is a graphic designer by training with a BFA from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and an art director by profession. Her career includes stints as an art director for a television station and a performing arts complex. When she moved to Wisconsin in 1994, she was hired as a senior art director at Pleasant Company, which she remembers fondly.
YouTube | Link to Georgene Pomplun
Painting farms to preserve them
With an appreciation for family farming, Georgene frequently paints the Donald Farm, Dane County’s oldest working farm, although it is now part of Donald Park. ”I think it’s important for us to preserve a way of life that is so important to Wisconsin and the people of this state,” the artist says.
”I am drawn to our wonderful old barns in Primrose Township, Dane County, and love painting them. I also love the solid farmhouses that epitomize the tenets of form and function with a sense of proportion and balance which fit so comfortably into their environment. ”Painting these old farms is my stake in preserving them because, as timeless as they seem, our way of life is undergoing major changes. Often, I will have painted a farm only to come back a year later and find it’s no longer there,” she adds sadly.
Appreciation for ecological harmony
”I’m a believer in man and nature being able to live together quite harmoniously, and these farms reflect that. Farmers are stewards of the land and have great care and concern for it,” Georgene smiles, dips her brush in more pigment and continues painting. Earliest memories were making art
Georgene remembers as a little girl she loved to draw horses and her parents gave her riding lessons. For her first competition she painted Sox, the horse she rode. ”I was thrilled to learn my painting won the national competition in my age group, seven, and I was pictured in The Chicago Tribune,” she admits with a smile.
While in high school, Georgene took classes at the American Academy of Art in Chicago and she has returned for intermittent sessions since graduating from college.
A joy to paint landscapes
”When I’m painting a landscape, I’m in the moment, totally relaxed. Hours will go by–time is suspended. With my painting I’m communicating from my heart to an audience that I hope will appreciate what I’m doing, at a more personal level.
”I strive to capture the quality of light in my work. In this area of Wisconsin it is an ever-changing phenomenon; the time of day and the season combine to create an atmosphere unique to that moment.
”I try to distill the essence of what I’m seeing in my oil paintings. I go there and can bring someone else along when they enjoy the finished work,” Georgene clarifies. ”I’ve always been an artist, whether I’m painting or drawing or designing a means of expression. The world just falls away.”
Asked to explain the impact of design and art direction in her painting, she explains, ”the disciplines of design and art direction inform my painting and what I bring to my painting informs my design and art direction as well. My sense of color, composition, the focal point and what I’m trying to communicate, it’s the same for both.”
Awards and publications
In 2008, two of Georgene’s paintings were selected for giclee prints as Governor Jim and First Lady Jessica Doyle’s personal gift presented to visitors. The annual Dane County Calendar of Places has featured her work nine times and, in 2001, Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission’s art poster was her work. She was then named DCCAC vice chair.
Several books have featured Georgene’s paintings on the cover, including: In a Pickle, Jerry Apps, 2007; What the Postcard Didn’t Say, Shoshauna Shy, (poetry) 2007; Shorts, John Lehman, (poetry) 2005; and Wisconsin, a monograph book on the state’s art and culture, published in 2001 by Harry N. Abrams.
In 2002, Georgene was the featured artist for WHA-TV’s annual Art and Antique auction and the International Breast Cancer Research Foundation’s Annual Art Auction.
In 2006, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters chose her painting to accompany the feature article highlighting ”The Future of Farming and Rural Life in Wisconsin” study.
Edgewood Orchard Gallery in Door County and Fanny Garver Gallery in Madison regularly feature Georgene’s work in their Gallery Shows.
