Low Country by Laura McGowan, 17.5x14.5

Regular price $550.00
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"Low Country" is an original oil painting on linen by Laura McGowan framed in a gold plein air frame. She painted this piece on location outside of Beaufort, South Carolina while on a painting trip with two of her local artist friends.

Dimensions: 17.5" wide x 14.5" high

Frame included.

This piece is final sale.

Laura McGowan lives in Onancock on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Her realistic oil paintings are her way of capturing meaningful moments in the natural world, translating the emotions of these scenes into art. McGowan came to her love for oil painting relatively late in life. Laura studied architecture at Cornell University before transferring to Pratt Institute, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in interior design. The following years saw McGowan designing corporate interiors in New York and London, then switching gears and working as a first grade teacher and finally an elementary art teacher. 

In 2011, McGowan enrolled in an oil painting class taught by a local artist and was hooked. “I loved it right from the start,” she recalls, “and knew I’d finally found a creative outlet I felt passionate about, that I wanted to continue to explore indefinitely.” McGowan focused on painting the beautiful and sometimes moody marshes and fields of the rural Eastern Shore of Virginia, as well as intimate still lifes of natural objects. Recalling her love of the ocean and the endless summer days spent watching the waves, she began painting seascapes, capturing both the calm and the revitalizing feeling of a day at the beach. McGowan paints mostly alla prima, or “wet on wet”, although she may also spend days going back over and over a painting to achieve the effect she wants. She is drawn to many styles of art, but is most influenced by the artists of the Barbizon School, such as Daubigny and Courbet, as well as the American Tonalists George Inness, Charles Warren Eaton, and James Whistler.

In 2016, ready to make the leap from teaching, to life as a full time artist, McGowan retired early to pursue her dreams and begin a new career that she loves. She has participated in shows such as the Rittenhouse Square Fine Art Show in Philadelphia, the Stockley Gardens Arts Festival in Norfolk, VA, and the Local Color Show in Easton, MD. Her work is shown in galleries in Virginia, Delaware, and New Jersey, and she teaches oil painting at a local arts center. She has won awards in shows of the Eastern Shore Art League and the Paint Onancock Plein Air Event.

McGowan’s days are spent painting in her studio at the Historic Onancock School, out in the field painting en plein air with friends, teaching, or traveling to art festivals. “Although I’m grateful for all the directions in which life’s taken me,” says McGowan, “I feel very lucky to have finally found my passion in oil painting.”

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