Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon Portland Community College

Playground in Snow by Mark Andres

  • Title: Playground in Snow
  • Artist: Mark Andres
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Size: 34"h x 39.5"w
  • Creation date: 1995
  • Added to collection: 2003
  • Donor: On loan from artist
  • Campus: Rock Creek
  • Location: B2/2 Math division break room

When schools are cancelled due to snow, teachers and students enjoy a snow day. This was painted on such a day when PCC had cancelled classes and the artist took his French easel through the unplowed streets to Pendleton Park in SW Portland to paint the playground, expecting to find it filled with children – a real Pieter Breughel subject. Instead, the playground was vacant, the sun weakly appearing through the clouds like a lightbulb through a dirty shower curtain. Snow scenes were a favored subject of the Impressionists because of the opportunities to study the chromatic effects of light on white surfaces – snow is never white, they discovered. The artist found this to hold true.