Jake Gaedtke

Artist Statement:
Like most landscape painters, my childhood was filled with a love for the outdoors. No matter the season of the year or time of day, being outside was all that mattered. Climbing trees, fishing, hiking, and camping filled my hours. That passion has never left me. On the contrary, it has escalated into a life of exploring nature and being a part of the landscape. Fortunately, I have been able to fuse my passion for the outdoors with my passion for making art.

After 30 years of painting off and on while balancing a career in the restaurant industry, and then in the advertising industry as an art director, it was time to confront my desire to paint the landscape. The day I took my first 'plein-air' workshop with the famed landscape painter, Jay Moore, my life changed, as did my artwork. I knew from that day I wanted to be a landscape painter. I have learned the many secrets and techniques used in painting the landscape, and there is so much more to learn. It is a life long journey to which there is no destination.

My field studies are used as my main source of reference for my larger studio paintings. For me, to paint from life is painting the truth, by bringing all the senses I am experiencing in that particular moment in time into one painting.

The natural landscape holds so much for us as a society and culture and for our future. To share the land we live in through my paintings is to share our most valued possession. With my paintings there is a record of the land as it is in this moment in time. Future generations will be able to see the land now as it is, just as we see the land as it was in the paintings of Joseph Sharp, Albert Bierstadt, George Innes, or William Wendt. My subject matter isn’t always about the grand vistas some might experience in a landscape painting. I also share the more intimate locations one might see along a trail on a hike or at a campsite that makes me stop for a minute and marvel at the beauty that exists within the simplicity of an everyday scene. Some of my landscapes can be profoundly metaphorical or they can be just what they are as simple statements of beauty and wonder.

I have always been a nocturnal person even as a child. I love night time. I feel creative and energized and I love the quiet mystery the evening holds. There is a certain closeness I feel to our Creator in the still of the night and a beauty few ever see. In the past few years I have been concentrating more of my paintings on nocturnes and going out on full moon nights and painting directly from life. I have learned so much about the values and color and mood of the night light. It’s intoxicating to me.

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