b. sakata garo
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                                                                                   jack stuppin



                "The joy and delight expressed in these pictures convey
                an authentic experience in seeing and painting."
                -Peter Selz, Professor Emeritus of Art History
                  University of California at Berkeley


                Jack was educated at Columbia College, NY and San Francisco Art
                Institute, CA. His style of painting is often called "plein air", or
                literally translated 'open air' because he paints outdoors on location.
                Painting this way puts a whole different light on a canvas. The artist
                must see beyond the subject of the painting. He cannot just think of the
                obvious facts in front of him--the trees, buildings, sky or water. Instead,
                thinking in terms of shape, mass, color, vlaue, size, rhythm, harmony,
                and repetitive themes the painting is born out of the land. Through
                seeing the large masses and smaller values of colors and shapes
                the overall picture is made. Many of the paintings were executed en
                plein air. However, because of the limitations imposed by climatic
                conditions, the paintings done outdoors are smaller than what
                can be done in the studio. Begining in 2001, Jack uses some en plein
                air paintings as inspiration for larger oils that he rendered
                in the studio. Jack wrote about what his paintings mean to him:
                "My paintings celebrate nature. The colorful works are not easy to ignore
                and I hope that those who view them will see the landscapes
                in a new and more intense way. The paintings are the result
                of my emotional reaction to the scene and my intellectual reaction
                to the scene and my intellctual reaction to our threatened
                environment. I hope they will touch, influence and give
                pleasure to many people." The artist admits to being addicted
                to painting: "The act of painting undoubtedly sets off
                what must be an excited level of neruotransmitters. We who paint
                grativate compulsively to the chemical and psyhic rewards triggered
                by the creative process." We, the viewers, are lucky recipients of Jack's
                passion for painting.