Painter's interests inform his work

When Otto Lange walked casually through the doors of the Howard-Daniel Corp. in Athens recently, he was met with smiles and cordial greetings. The owners know the artist well. And he knows them.

Max Howard is the craftsman who blends the paints. And Craig Daniel makes the white panels.

"You paint very thin layers with a very smooth finish. You have the ability to paint photo-realistically," Howard said as he discussed Lange's use of panels instead of the cloth canvas many artists use. "People who paint more impressionistic, it would be harder for them to blend colors."

Lange and Howard were talking shop as they stood in the warehouse where art paints and canvasses are made and shipped to many points beyond Georgia. Lange, who lives just a few miles down the road in Winterville, said he was surprised to learn one day that a company manufacturing art supplies was so close. Now his shaved head is a familiar one at the paint shop, where many hues of colors are put into thousands of tubes.

And while Daniel praised Lange's ability to paint a realistic-looking object, it's not a description that Lange wants to define his art completely.

"That's not real," he said standing before a couple of his paintings - one of an overripe banana, the other a milk carton.

"It's a two-dimensional thing. It's a kind of controlled abstraction. I don't like the term 'realism.'

"If you look at these objects as more like shapes and the way they move, this is psychologically satisfying. You have movement going with direction," he said.

People will have a chance to see Lange's work beginning Friday when the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation hosts the opening gala reception for the 2010 Southworks Juried Art Exhibit. Lange was chosen as this year's Director's Choice artist, and he is expected to attend the reception, which runs 6-9 p.m. This is his first exhibit in the Athens area.

Observers of his artwork often see familiar objects, such as blackberries and a toy car or a boot and flowers, but the objects are cast in the imagery of the unreal. Lange does his painting at home, where he keeps his nuggets of the past - he collects little do-dads such as Superman and Batman figurines, old soda bottles or packs of cigarettes - and watches old Bing Crosby movies and reruns of "The Six Million Dollar Man."

Lange is married - his wife helps with the business end of his career - and has an epileptic dog, which suffers almost daily seizures, to fill in as the child who needs a dad. "I love that dog. It's really taught me about patience," Lange commented.

Lange, who only started his oil painting career in 2006, sells many pieces through the Miller Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio, although recently he began business with Swan Coach House in Atlanta. The 39-year-old, who has sold to collectors across the U.S., grew up on the laid-back streets of Comer, where the year's biggest events still are the Madison County Fair and the Christmas parade. He lived in a two-story home that was practically in the middle of town.

Lange's parents moved from Ohio in 1973 to Stone Mountain in Georgia, but settled in Comer in 1979. After graduating Madison County High School in 1988, he went to the University of Georgia to major in marketing. He had taken some art classes in high school, but Lange insists he had no direction for a future career. In fact, after two years of college, he quit. Then he and his girlfriend headed to Ohio, where he worked as a jeweler. But that lasted only a short time.

"I didn't want to do it anymore, even though I had an aptitude for it. There's better ways to make a living," he said. So in 1999, he returned to UGA and graduated in 2002 with a degree in drawing and painting. Afterward, Lange launched into art to discover if his place was one of avocation or profession.

"I was drawing between the time I graduated up until about 2006 when I started oil painting. So I've really only been painting about four years - seriously painting where I knew what I was doing," he said while relaxing in a chair in the warehouse office.

Lange went against conventional thought in establishing himself as an artist. Most artists try to develop a career by finding a gallery that will market their work. That was the advice he got.

"Everybody was like, 'Go to New York.' You don't have to go to New York. There are lots of viable places to sell your work - where they are nice to you," Lange said. "I started working with blogs and Web sites. The Internet is why I even have a career at all."

He tested the gallery route.

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