Drawn to the effects of being outdoors, Edward Rebek creates paintings centered on color, light, rhythm, shape, and scale found in the serenity of nature. Whether hiking around the woods and shoreline near his home in Saugatuck, Michigan, or recounting years spent living in the bustling city of Chicago, Rebek ultimately aims to transfer the tranquility of these ordinary moments into painting.Often as if squinting your eyes, Rebek’s paintings, with their rhythmic brushstrokes, interconnecting shapes, and textural surfaces, provide a simplified patchwork of colors directed by sunlight. A deep-seated nostalgia for childhood camping trips sitting around a warm fire in the midst of a still forest come through Rebek’s process, communicating his lasting “special contentment” for being outside.Edward Rebek received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Northern Illinois University in 1982. For over 30 years, Rebek has worked as the owner and creative director of Chicago-based package design firm, JOED Design. Starting in 2008 and continuing to the present, Rebek has enrolled in a series of workshops, seminars and retreats with Richard Kooyman, a painter and instructor in rural, Kaleva, Michigan.