PAPO Retrospective Artist Reception

Fourth Corner Frames and Studio UFO are collaborating to celebrate eleven years of Bellingham’s PAPO (Plein Air Paint Out). The show will hang in the Fourth Corner Frames gallery November 18 through December 24, 2016. An artist reception will be held Friday, December 2, 2016 from 6 to 9pm during Bellingham’s Downtown Art Walk.

Trish Harding initially started this annual event to promote public awareness and appreciation of Plein Air Painting and art in general. Over the years, more emphasis has been put on helping artists hone their skills, as more artists take to the outdoors to paint.
During each PAPO there has been an average of 30 artists painting along or near the Holly Street corridor.

Historically, a group of artists during the mid-19th century in France, such as Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Edouard Degas, and Auguste Renoir, maintained that what you saw in nature was not form, but light on form, and that light could be rendered utilizing color. As more and more artists took to the outdoors, the goals of both teachers and students alike, was to capture the light and colors peculiar to a specific place. Artists participating in the 2014 Bellingham PAPO submitted this statement for their show: “We paint from life in order to learn how to see. If you can paint light, you can paint everything under the sun.”