Wim Oepts artwork • painting • for sale French village

For Wim Oepts, color was the most essential aspect of painting. The painter discovered this in 1937 in the southern French fishing village of Collioure, where he was captivated by the magical Mediterranean light that made the world sparkle and radiate with color. In 1945, he settled permanently in the sun-drenched South of France. There he found the inspiration for his landscapes, primarily village and harbor scenes, which from then on were composed in large planes of bright, often unrealistic shades of red, violet, vivid yellow, and cobalt blue. This is also the case in this painting, where the red house is transformed by the artist's eye into a vibrant red. He does the same with the paths in front of it, in unnatural purple and blue. This becomes Oepts's strength; it doesn't detract from the artist's experience; it reflects how the painter experienced the magic of the southern light.