Oberling’s ‘My Montana’ exhibit featured at Phillips Studio and Gallery

New works by artist Nicholas Oberling will be featured during September at Phillips Studio and Gallery. Meet the artist at the First Friday reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 7, at the gallery, located in the Kalispell Center Mall.

Oberling is an award-winning American landscape oil painter living and working in Northwest Montana for over 20 years and is known for his meticulous details and dramatic skies. The exhibit showcases the inherent beauty of his work.

Oberling can be found most days painting in his studio at Glacier Fine Art in Hungry Horse. He welcomes visitors to stop by to see his work in progress, with finished pieces surrounding his easel. He likes to paint out of doors as well, as it lets his instincts take over and allows him to just paint.

“I want to get to the soul of something, to the mood, the atmosphere,” Oberling said. “I want to tell a story — I want people to have a sense of place about my paintings.”

His work strives to imbue others with a sublime love of nature and the natural landscape, and the need to preserve it.

Oberling devotes a large portion of each painting to the sky. The sky tells the mood of the day and the direction of the sun, it sets the mood in his work. He finds clouds beautiful and mysterious and says he finds sunny days boring, for when clouds appear there is restlessness in nature that isn’t otherwise there.

Oberling’s “My Montana” exhibit will be on display at the gallery through Sept. 25. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.