Above: “The African Boy,” acrylic on birch plywood.

An African boy’s intent face peers out, the wonder, innocence, and confusion of adolescence glinting in his eyes. This painting, “African Boy,” was the first work upon which Lopez Island artist, Lane Langford, was asked to comment.

“The boy was such a thrilling departure for me,” Langford begins, sitting on his porch which peers ‘like a tree house’ above Fisherman Bay. “I’ve done portraits of Brittnay and Breana, my two daughters, but I didn’t know this person and I wanted to.”

Langford regards the painting as a departure piece because “I felt a fear, a reticence. Would I be able to ‘get him’?”

“In the process of trying though, I became freer with my brush and I knew, when I was finished, that I had him.”

Until two years ago, Langford had been painting for years with the Microsoft Paint Program; however, his late wife, Susie, after seeing his efforts, told him that he really had to ‘pick up the brush.’

Later, local artist Colin Goode invited Langford over to his studio to do just that. Under Goode’s influence, and working side by side with him, Langford began using acrylics.

“Colin showed me how acrylics work and then turned me loose and left me to my own devices. Every Thursday night, it was music and painting in his studio, sometimes with a little wine,” Langford smiles broadly at the thought of good work done well. “Every Thursday night, there we were, painting, side by side, often without saying much of anything to each other.”

Langford is firm when asked about his defining philosophy as an artist, saying, “It is to be passionate about my art. If I don’t have a brush in my hand or a concept, I feel restless.”

Naïve realism is the phrase Langford has created to characterize his style. “I like realism, but I add the word ‘naïve’ because I’m a young artist, one who’s relatively untrained.”

Langford regards the constant diligence required to master computer art as his art school, for it was this process which taught him perspective, color, balance, form, and the other elements necessary for a successful painting.

Working from a small table of which he says laughingly, “There’s my studio,” Langford usually begins with a photograph placed before him. “I’m not a plein air artist, though I would love to try it.”

“The African Boy” was based on such a photograph, this one taken by his daughter, Brittany, on a recent trip she and her father took, along with a number of other Lopezians, to Africa.

Other paintings of Langford’s are more familiar scenes of Lopez: Several, including a brilliant sunset framed by the shadows of firs, currently hang on the wall in Chimera Gallery. Regardless of the subject matter, however, all of his paintings share, most salient among all of Langford’s objectives as a painter, a love of light. “Susie and I had gone to Santa Barbara and I became enchanted by the magical light there. Lopez has the same quality of light. I tell people there’s not a bad seat in the house.”

How does light shape the clouds by reflection or give water a sense of movement and life? How is space that feels tangible created by light? It is this desire to capture this “magical” light that drives Langford’s brush. “I want viewers of my paintings to ‘feel the air’. Through my understanding of the light, I can hopefully give them pleasure from the perspective of another human, the artist’s.”

Langford characterizes every piece he paints as a struggle, at times a painful struggle. Returning to “The African Boy,” he relates that not only was it challenging because he’d never attempted to paint black skin before, but also because it was as if “he were begging me to paint him.”

The freedom of capturing the subject, whether a young African boy, the lines of a sailboat, or the undulations of a just-mown field all make the struggle worth continuing.

Langford’s acrylics and other paintings can be seen at Chimera Gallery. Langford does take commission work; you may contact him at 468-4581 or Langford@rockisland.com.