DALE LANDRUM
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The landscape, including gardens, vineyards, fall colors, mountain scenery, marine paintings, and architectural themes, represent the primary subject matter for Dale Landrum’s oil paintings. Originally from California, Dale has been an Oregon resident since 1990. He traces his earliest artistic influences to charcoal figure drawings, and notebooks of colorful “Hollywood Era” fashion illustrations done by his mother. Airplanes also captured his interest at a very early age, and he developed an interest for drawing that continued through the years and ultimately led him to painting on canvas. “The pigments of the trade are like magic wands if you know how to use them. The best use of oil paints can create something that has real charm, and that is what has inspired me all along.”
Dale’s artwork has broad influence and inspiration from many groups and periods. However, in his earlier days of learning to paint, his greatest single influence was being out on the landscape, and painting the subject on location, or plein air. This approach reinforced the basic goal of capturing a scene as it is affected by natural light.
In the late 1980’s, while working for the Santa Fe National Forest in northern New Mexico, Dale quickly found himself painting scenes of the region in his time off, and discovered additional inspiration in the galleries of Santa Fe and Taos. He emphasizes the huge influence those two years had on him: “I’d go into Santa Fe almost every weekend and assimilate as much artwork as I could, from the early Taos painters as well as living artists. It was a great place to be at the time, because there was so much inspiration to be found, in the galleries and out on the landscape.”
Dale began dedicating himself full-time as an oil painter in 2003. He travels often, seeking out new subjects, focusing on rural scenes and natural places that are rapidly vanishing from the landscape. “Some people approach painting whereby the landscape is merely an accessory to the figure. My view is more commonly the opposite; I prefer the figure(s) as an accessory to the landscape. Although for a period I spent lots of time drawing the figure from life, I’ve always preferred the landscape over the figure due to a strong passion for the out-of-doors. Painting allows me to express some of this passion for the world we live in; a world in which open space is becoming more and more scarce. If I can translate the inspiration I have for open space, then I will have accomplished that goal.”
In 2019 Landrum was juried in the NOAPS (Nation Oil & Acrylic Painters Society) annual national exhibition in Park City, Utah. He is currently a member of Oil Painters of America, and also the American Impressionist Society. As a member of Oil Painters of America, Dale has exhibited in their western regional juried exhibitions. In 2005 he received the O.P.A. Award Of Excellence in the Santa Barbara-Western Regional Juried Exhibition. In 2006 he exhibited in the O.P.A. National Juried Exhibition.