Nine Lives: Forest

Michael Brophy was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest.  The region's history, landscape and character have, and continue to inform the subject matter and images of the artist's paintings.  He created this painting as one of a series of nine works (only one is in the City collection) that depicts the human figure facing various landscapes.  Brophy, a Portland painter, thinks of his work as an act of inquiry.  He is concerned with depictions of the landscape as it has been shaped by human endeavor.  I'm not interested in a romanticized or sanitized vision of nature only, but one in which the marks of civilization are given their due.  –Artist statement