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‘Infl uenced by
the ocean’
M
Washington artist views, portrays water, stone and air through ‘Pacifi c Portals’
By DWIGHT CASWELL
Marc Boone paints the Pa-
cifi c Ocean in his current show,
“Pacifi c Portals,” open Saturday,
June 11 at Astoria’s Imogen Gal-
lery. The ocean is seen through
apertures — surf-carved holes
and spaces between stone pillars
in rock formations at the water’s
edge — and the fl at canvasses
achieve an abstract depth. The sea
in its changing moods is blue and
gray and sparkles with silver. The
acute triangle of a sail rises above
the waves, the boat hidden in a
trough, a vibrant slash of white
against troubled swells. “I like
moving in and out in the picture,”
says Boone, “and I have always
been heavily infl uenced by the
ocean.”
Boone found the portals
through which he views the Pacifi c
along the Washington coast, and
you may recognize Hole in the
Wall (west of Forks) or Dead
Man’s Cove at Cape Disappoint-
ment State Park. In his paintings,
these real places fl oat in the
tenuous world between realism
and abstraction. A watercolor may
have a thin white line of horizon,
unpainted, with the shapes of sea
and land, the colors of water and
sunset, and most of the painting
wiped away to a deathlike white,
literally, with a sponge, like fog
rolling in over the landscape. An-
other painting, in oils, is of the sea
and a dark sky in shades of blue
and gray, white-topped crests, sur-
rounded by immovable rock. The
seas fl ow through where the water
has worn through rock; the water
is fl ecked with the silver, literally,
from metallic paint.
Boone has painted and exhibit-
ed largely in the east, but he is no
stranger to the Pacifi c Northwest.
Born and raised in the Palouse
PHOTO BY DWIGHT CASWELL
Artist Marc Boone, who lives in Ocean Park, Washington, will have work
on display in the solo show “Pacifi c Portals,” opening June 11 at Imogen
Gallery in Astoria.
country of Northern Idaho and
Eastern Washington, he came
under the infl uence of legendary
Oregon modernist Louis Bunce
while studying at the Pacifi c
Northwest College of Art. Soon
he was in New York, where he
had the great good fortune to be
introduced to many leaders of the
contemporary art scene, including
Elaine de Koonig, Salvatore Scar-
pitta and Edward Dugmore. He
experimented with mixed-media;
he developed an exceptional eye
for line and composition.
Boone lived and worked in the
east, but he says, “In New York
or Baltimore, I always felt like
a Northwest painter, and it was
always my plan to come back and
stay.”
He did just that six years ago,
buying a home in Ocean Park,
Washington, where he began
painting a different kind of land-
scape. In doing so, he realized
that 30 or more years ago he had
abstracted trees to much the same
effect as his current painting
of rocks and ocean. “I wasn’t
conscious of that at the time but
developed it later. It looks like a
big change, but you’re going over
old ground in a different way.”
Boone began doing straight
watercolors when he returned to
the Northwest. “I didn’t know if
I’d like it,” he says, “I had always
included drawing, and I had done
mixed-media. I discovered I liked
it.”
After two years of working in
watercolor, he returned again to
oils. His watercolors, with their
white atmosphere, and his oils,
with their expanses of tone, now
infl uence each other. He begins
his oil paintings with a general
composition based on his sketch-
book, he says, “with heavy color,
and then work it up with a palette
knife.”
Marc Boone’s paintings exude
a mature self-assurance. He is an
artist who has spent a lifetime
coming to this point, and now
SUBMITTED PHOTO
“Pacifi c Portal 1” by Marc Boone.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
“Shaman’s Trail” by Marc Boone.
his line is poised, his use of color
confi dent. More importantly, life
and death, water, stone and air
struggle in these paintings and
fi nally become a whole world of
sense and feeling.
‘Pacifi c Portals’ opens at Imogen
Gallery with a reception from 5 to
8 p.m. Saturday, June 11 during As-
toria’s Second Saturday Art Walk
and continues for a month.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
“Pacifi c Portal 3” by Marc Boone.