Rainier artist Phil Fake paints the heart of urban landscapes

Phil Fake's art career started when he was eight years old. He'd gather leftover paint-by-numbers materials and paint houses from the sidewalk and sell his young masterpieces for $1. His talent was apparent as early as second grade when his crayon drawing wasn't accepted at the local fair because the judges did not believe the caliber of the artistry could have been created by someone so young.

Fake grew up in Roseburg, Ore., and practiced art throughout his life, eventually earning a bachelor of science degree in fine art drawing and painting from the University of Oregon in 1984. His artistic focus has always been urban landscapes. "I always paint wherever I'm at because that's the closest to the interpretation of the society I am in," he said. "I'm looking at how we humans create our own little gardens of eden. We create our little paradise, which means garden, in our homes and the world as we want it to be, not necessarily as it is. So there's always going to be some human element to my paintings."

Fake has experience in a variety of art mediums and styles, but his true love is oil painting "en plein air," which is french for painting in the open air. "I don't use any photographic assistance. It's all direct eye to hand canvas," Fake said. "A camera flattens your perspective of the composition and also takes away radiant light so I use my personal response to radiant light and try to paint that. I don't contrive anything. With a last name like Fake, the last thing I want to do is contrive something; I try to keep it real."

To help accomplish his artistic pursuits after college, Fake built himself a "monster bike cart" that acts as a mobile studio. He landed in Portland in the 90s, started a family and immersed himself in Native American culture with his partner at the time, working at Cedar Mountain Drums and art gallery and painting urban landscapes on various locations around Portland.

Around this time, Fake connected with Dorothy, who would become his wife, and after a few years painting around Portland, they took their adventure from land to water, moving onto a boat anchored in the Sellwood neighborhood. "We would go out a lot and I could paint from the boat deck," he said. "We did that for 16 years, just living on the boat and for the last three years we never went back to our home slip. We just stayed out in the water."

In 2016, they decided to lay down roots in Columbia County, landing in St. Helens and opened the Fake Art Gallery but soon decided to close the shop and buy a house in Rainier. "I moved to Rainier because, as a painter, what I really like is hills. I fell in love with Rainier as soon as we drove through it. I said, 'Oh, look at this, the whole town's on a hillside. How could I go wrong here?' I went right to the Evergreen Cafe and had that painting planned before we ever moved here."

Fake's current art gallery comprises the walls of his home, which include a number of paintings of Rainier captured from his front porch. His current project is a series of portraits of downtown Rainier starting with Cornerstone Cafe and A street where residents and visitors will see him and his mobile cart painting from various corners over the next month. "Primarily you're looking for a way through the painting, some kind of depth with the street corner," he said. He is planning a pop-up or a gallery show once the series is complete.

For more information visit: https://paintingsbyphilfake.com/ ; facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaintingsbyPhilFake; or email: art@philfake.com.