PAUL G. OXBOROUGH
	FOREWORD Paul Oxborough found that the inspiration for his newest body of work was as near as his neighborhood bistro and as far away as the streets of London. The genre scenes he paints are from his life and, as such, they possess the truth and intimacy of an experienced reality. Oxborough sets out to make the everyday neither heroic nor mundane but through a masterful use of light, a striking diversity of palette and the rhythm of his bravura brushwork, he transforms the seemingly ordinary into occasions worth remembering. Luxuriating amidst swathes of white linen, a young woman lazily curls her lips into a smile as her eyes peek from beneath heavy lids in At the Soho Grand. Alone, she is at once inviting and intriguing but it is the material upon which she rests and the robe she so casually wears that become a second character - a vivid swirl of pastel hues imbued with amber highlights. The surface of the painting, thick and lush with generous sweeping strokes of paint, is as satisfying as the scene before us. Lost in an air of contentment, we savor the moment with her. Paul Oxborough, born in 1965 in Minnesota, continues to be compared to the likes of Sargent and Manet. This is undeniably flattering and wholly understandable since he counts these two masters, as well as Velázquez and Sorolla, as his greatest influences. Classically trained in the French atelier tradition, his strict academic background affords him a foundation upon which he explores a free and courageous visual language. The patrons of a café sit relaxed, comfortably awash in a warm glow of crimson in Mr. Oxborough's major work entitled Café Concert. In contrast, we see the white lit reflection of the entertainers animated in mid-performance. Within this brilliant juxtaposition of palette and mood sits the figure of a man gazing off into the distance, perhaps to a place where the music has taken him. Characteristically complex, the painting is imposing in scale and dramatic in effect, but while the tonality is fiery and intense, the scene is intimate and private. Happening upon two young men ensconced on a street corner in London, Oxborough was drawn into a conversation, which resulted in the engrossing work entitled Someone's Irish Sons. Seeking out cool shadows in the city's summer heat, two figures, easily overlooked by passersby, are lifted out of obscurity in this haunting composition. With a companion beside him, a youth stares at us from the fringes of society. His eyes are soft and without malice. He seems to neither impose nor demand anything from us. Oxborough, as a father of four, understands this is someone's child. As an artist of extraordinary perception and skill, he allows us to see the boy without fear or judgement. It is a moment of recognition and perhaps ultimately of hope. A shopkeeper in a doorway, a short order cook at the griddle, an elderly man enjoying his evening pipe; these are the familiar places Paul Oxborough visits on canvas. Although these are concrete realities that we all understand, the artist does not marry them to an ideology or attitude, instead offering us shared human experiences grounded in a specific physical reality. In this his third major one-man exhibition, Paul Oxborough's voice continues to mature as he brings reality to a heightened state of fruition through light, color and texture.
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