O-Hi-Yo

by Alan Paine Radebaugh

“I spend weeks on the road--camping, walking, sketching, visualizing. I have followed rivers from mouth to confluence to delta—Rio Grande, Mackenzie, Arkansas, Missouri, Crow’s Nest, Mississippi, and many others. I have traveled from New Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, from the Allegheny National Forest to the canyon lands of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. For 35 years, I have traveled thousands of miles through the United States and Canada, and my work is influenced by the landscape--sky, deserts, mountains, rivers, forests. I return to my studio in Albuquerque to paint. I re-draw sketches onto canvasses, often combining more than one sketch on a canvas. However, the act of painting itself guides me more than the sketch does. The sketch is my starting point. Working in oils on canvas or linen, on one to three canvases at a time, I allow the process of painting and the painting itself to determine the final product. Moving paint around on a canvas brings me pure joy. O-Hi-Yo paintings were inspired by journeys to the Allegheny National Forest, the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers which form the Ohio River, and along the Ohio and Allegheny rivers. The Iroquoian words "O-Hi-Yo" translate to ‘beautiful river.’“