“Anthropocene,” 2018
At first glance, Philip Govedare‘s art looks like your typical aerial landscape photograph. But upon close inspection, it’s revealed that these are actually carefully crafted oil paintings. Visually compelling, each piece highlights natural geographic features, as well as the manmade interventions that impact our planet.
Inspired by remote western landscapes, Govedare’s work isn’t about one specific place. Rather, he uses his memories, observations, and imagination to formulate an evocative landscape. In depicting different weather and lighting conditions, as well as geological formations, he’s able to evoke different emotions.
“While my paintings may elicit questions about our role in nature and the transformation (or desecration) of the earth’s surface and biosphere, they are, above all, a celebration of the beauty and mystery of the natural world,” Govedare tells My Modern Met. “I hope that my work inspires people to contemplate our place as an integral part of nature and appreciate all that is mysterious and transcendent in the world we inhabit.”
Govedare, who is also a professor of painting and drawing at the University of Washington, cares deeply about the state of nature. And so, his oil paintings act as a response to its current state, as both a celebration of its beauty and a call to arms for its future.
In June 2024, a selection of Govedare’s most recent paintings will go on display in a solo exhibition at Seattle’s Winston Wätcher Fine Art.
Artist Philip Govedare creates stunning oil paintings showing fictional landscapes from an aerial perspective.
“Caldera,” 2022
“Bluff,” 2022
He incorporates geological features and human interventions to show the changing dynamic of nature.
“Orb,” 2022
“Oasis,” 2023
“Seen from an aerial perspective, these elements are evocative, intricate, and visually compelling.”
“Source,” 2024
“Antropocene 4,” 2024
“They suggest a complex narrative of human intervention that elicits questions about our role in nature and how our activity has reshaped the earth in the Anthropocene.”
“Axis,” 2024
“Winona,” 2024
“Laguna,” 2022