“BUCKINGHAM MEETING”: Artist Jeff Gola uses the egg tempera technique to create his landscape paintings.
By Thomas Kelly
Jeff Gola is a realist painter who creates his own world of landscapes. His world is peaceful, serene, and timeless. His world shows nature and civilization melding and mingling. The scenes may be from today or from a different era altogether. All the seasons are represented with a spotlight on winter and snow scenes.
Gola paints using egg tempera. This is an ancient technique dating back to Egyptian and Greek art. Pigments are mixed with egg yolk and water, then applied as a quick drying paint. These are mixed before each painting session. The method can allow for tight brushwork and fine details.
How do you decide what to paint?
For my landscapes, the quality of light and the potential for interesting passages of paint or drawing elements can often make me want to choose a scene. For painting subjects, it’s often something that I feel has some sort of tension, the subtler the better, that deserves exploring. Occasionally I see something that reminds me of past themes or masterworks from art history but revealed in a new form.
Who were painters who influenced you early on?
Andrew Wyeth, the Northern Renaissance painters like Albrecht Durer and the Breughels, the Dutch Landscape painters and Hudson River school, and painters of the 20th Century American scene like Edward Hopper.
How do you decide the size of a piece?
That can be a hard decision for me at times. I never liked to paint extremely large, which for me is anything more than 3 feet long. Often, I feel certain images deserve to be a certain “larger” size for their impact and for space to focus on interesting passages, but I will also think that some images are best done small for that “jewel-like” impression that egg tempera can give. In the end it is usually an intuitive decision, but I do let that thought simmer at times.
Tell us a little about your medium and process.
I landed on using egg tempera as my primary medium years ago. I was attracted to its quick drying properties that lend itself to rendering detail in a layered technique. It’s a slow medium that requires patience, and that is my style. The paint uses egg yolk for its binder and has to be mixed fresh at the start of every painting session. It is not complicated, but it is not for everyone.
I work on my egg tempera exclusively in my studio, using photo references I have taken on my drives and walks. Sometimes I get these photos on dedicated trips, and sometimes they are just things I see out of the corner of my eye while on the way to do other things. I rarely start right away but let them sit before going back to review images for a new painting. I will play with loose sketching or cropping for composition, determine the painting size, prepare or acquire a panel and then get to work. I prefer to have two or three going at the same time unless I have a deadline I am trying to make.
What fight/struggle do you have regarding your art?
Probably my current studio space. I like being in the house, and my work is small, so I can nest comfortably in the space I have now and work productively. However, it is not a space where I can have studio visits or hang many pieces together. I am working on improving that soon.
Do you paint in season?
Definitely not! I like to mix things up. Often what I’m currently working on comes from wanting to have particular things for a show, but I will also purposely try to paint off season just to get a focus on memories as I work. Snow scenes can be a form of air conditioning too. Collectors should consider that!
Do you feel nostalgia for some of the subjects that you paint?
I often do, but it is usually a personal form of nostalgia. I paint many rural subjects, and that is the environment I grew up in, and my family was deeply rooted in the farming community. For buildings or small-town subjects, I am attracted to those things that seem to be not necessarily abandoned but on the verge of disappearing: either to be demolished or to be fixed up soon. I do many snow scenes, and those carry their own form of personal childhood nostalgia for those of us who grew up with it. I often find it interesting to paint the tension between picturesque nostalgia and the grittiness of reality, on a subtle level.
Do you ever add figures in your paintings?
I do not. I sort of drifted into that decision long ago with my focus on the landscape and not wanting to make it narrative or not wanting to shift the focus from the world I’ve built. Early on in school, I’d sometimes include small undefined or mysterious figures in a scene, but I got away from that.
How do you know when a painting is complete and when you can stop?
While I am patient, I can often get bored working on the same project for a long time, so I think I may have just developed my own cadence in working. Egg tempera is hard to overwork, so one can keep going nearly indefinitely, but there comes a point that I can’t define that says, “Enough, on to the next one.” I think I am relatively fast working for an egg tempera painter, which means weeks and not months.
What will you be exhibiting in your upcoming show?
In the show at Pennswood, I do not have a specific theme. It is a collection of work from the last 10 years with some brand new ones. It includes some work of rural Bucks County and New Jersey and some of my visits up to Massachusetts. Also included are some of my animal paintings, and my night subjects, and even the New Jersey shore.
All are invited to visit “Earth and Sky; Paintings in Egg Tempera by Jeff Gola” at the Pennswood Art Gallery, 1382 Newtown Langhorne Road in Newtown, Pa., September 13 through November 1 1. The Opening Reception and Artist Talk are on Sunday, September 13, from 2 to 4 p.m.
Is painting still fun for you?
Very much. It’s not something I intend to retire from.
Where can we see your work?
Besides the exhibit in Newtown, at Canal Framecrafts Gallery in Washington Crossing, Pa., and at the Artful Deposit in Bordentown. Further afield, at William Baczek Fine Arts in Northampton, Mass.
What is on the horizon? What are you looking forward to?
I have many series that I want to start or expand upon — the Shore, various machines in their environments, and other landscapes from travels I’ve taken and hope to revisit from the West, Midwest, New England, and close to home as well. My wife and I are beginning to travel more, and while in the U.K., I dragged her to the most obscure, forgotten churches and holy sites I could find (I had a list), and I would like to do some work based on them.
To learn more, visit jeffgola.com or follow him on Facebook and Instagram.