George Goebel
Small Waves in the Moonlight, acrylic on panel, 15" x 30", $3,000
George Goebel, a native of central Maryland, had his whole notion of painting changed radically after viewing a Maxfield Parrish exhibition many years ago. Parrish's highly detailed, gemlike landscapes seemed as if they were lit from behind with a glow all their own. Before he experienced that wonderful exhibit, he achieved the illusion of light in his paintings by building up opaque colors over a middle-toned background. Goebel studied Parrish's technique of laying down transparent glazes of color on a pure white panel, and a whole new world of possibilities opened up for him.
Goebel's landscape paintings generally fall into two catagories: forest and shore. Near his home in central Maryland he is lucky to have access to the Patapsco Valley State Park, which protects thousands of acres of old-growth eastern deciduous forest. Within the boundaries of this reserve he finds an endless variety of subject matter that changes with each season. The inspiration for his seascapes comes from his many trips to the little pad that he and his wife own on the flat sandy expanses of the mid-Atlantic shore in Ocean City Maryland and along the rocky coast of Maine where his sister has a summer home. In the last decade Goebel's summer trips to the coast of Maine have taken his seascapes in an entirely new direction as he tries to grapple with the challenge of avoiding the cliches we've come to associate with paintings of Maine.
Goebel's paintings are in numerous private collections across the globe and his works have appeared in publications such as American Artist Magazine, The Artist's Magazine, North Light books and National Geographic Magazine.