About

About the Artwork

“Langille's art captures the essence of place. His charcoal drawings are specific without being photorealistic—he recreates vistas he's traveled to, but his renderings are more than documentation. As Langille says, the joy of making his work is that he is able ‘to experience a place again.’ His pieces are infused with a mixture of memory and exploration. It isn't hard to picture Langille as a child playing in the New Ipswich, New Hampshire woods and building forts amongst the trees. That joy—now accompanied by a quiet peacefulness that comes from decades of experience—fills each of his drawings.

After traveling the world, Langille settled in the small mill town of Harrisville, New Hampshire. ‘There is something special about the Monadnock Region,’ the artist explains, and he appreciates 'Harrisville's focus on conservation and stewardship.’ Langille hikes, kayaks, and skis simply to enjoy the outdoors, but he is always ready with his camera whenever he stumbles on the perfect scene to take back to his studio. He starts with his color photographs, then creates with charcoal, erasers, and blenders (or as he calls them, ‘little gray stumps’).

Langille has transformed the medium of charcoal—all those little black, burned bits—into softly focused moments capable of expressing magic. Maybe it is through his ability to capture the essence of a place rather than get completely lost in its particulars. Maybe, as he says, it is because he ‘finds that the black and white nature of the drawings creates a unique mood and perspective’ that allows him ‘to show off the light and the shadows and creates a different emotion than what the same subject would have if it were in color.’ Or maybe it is just because he sees the world in a beautiful, wonderful way and we are lucky enough to catch a glimpse of that view in the artwork he creates.”

—Corwin Levi