Meet artist Nicholas Oberling at Phillips Gallery

Phillips Gallery’s latest exhibit, Polebridge Days, features the work of local artist Nicholas Oberling.  

The landscape artist’s recent work was inspired by his summer spent in Polebridge area, where he enjoyed painting en plein air. 

“I want to get to the soul of something, to the mood, the atmosphere. I want people to have a sense of place about my paintings, so I do what it takes to get that,” Oberling said in a press release.  

He devotes a large portion of each painting to the sky, which "tells the mood of the day, and it sets the mood in his work.” There is restlessness in nature that isn’t otherwise there without the clouds, Oberling said, a mood he strives to express by depicting nature’s singular presence in each painting, according to the press release.  Raised in Long Island, Oberling received training at the Art Students League in New York. He is a founding member of the Montana Painters Alliance. He served 11 years on the Glacier Art Museum board, where his work is represented in the permanent collection.  He's participated in C.M. Russell Museum, Montana Land Reliance and Treasure State art auctions and invitational auctions on behalf of the Hockaday Museum of Art, the Yellowstone Art Museum, and the Nature Conservancy of Montana. Additionally, he completed artist-in-residencies in Glacier National Park and Helena National Forest. 

Meet the artist during an opening reception scheduled from 5 to 7 p.m. Dec. 4 at Phillips Gallery, located inside the Kalispell Center Mall, 20 N. Main St. An artist talk will begin at 5:30 p.m. People will be able to learn more about his artistic process, techniques and stories behind the landscapes he paints. 

For more information, call the gallery at 309-2335.