TRAFFIC LAND PAINTINGS
I have been interested in the abstracted landscape since the 1990s. I am a native of Illinois, inspired by the flat terrain and horizons of the prairie. After moving to Memphis in 1997 I became attracted to the unnoticed marginal spaces in the urban landscape. The work, “Concrete Abstraction”, aggrandized the banal concrete covered landscape, bathing it in mysterious light and shimmering radiance. My most recent body of work marries the urban scene with my geographical roots via views from midwestern traffic cameras.
In January 2008 I began monitoring Milwaukee traffic cameras from my computer. I watched as blizzards emptied the freeways of commuters and softened the geometry, blurring the edges of nature and culture. Empty space filled first with snow and sleet and then with private distractions. “Trafficland” is a series of paintings and drawings based on those webcam images. It is a construction, a vision of the urban landscape mediated by the practical role of traffic cameras and the poetic inclinations of a solitary viewer.
In January 2008 I began monitoring Milwaukee traffic cameras from my computer. I watched as blizzards emptied the freeways of commuters and softened the geometry, blurring the edges of nature and culture. Empty space filled first with snow and sleet and then with private distractions. “Trafficland” is a series of paintings and drawings based on those webcam images. It is a construction, a vision of the urban landscape mediated by the practical role of traffic cameras and the poetic inclinations of a solitary viewer.
CONCRETE ABSTRACTION PAINTINGS
Memphis is both earthy and atmospheric. Here humidity and pollution turn air to mass. Heat waves dissolve substance. The river appears to be dense and slow yet it is swift and deadly. Humans and the land coexist in uneasy tension.
I am interested in the spaces between things, the unnoticed marginal spaces in the urban landscape. Likewise, as a painter I like painting in that unsettling place between abstraction and naturalism. I find inspiration in ordinary urban places such as parking lots and intersections. I am attracted to the anonymous and ubiquitous concrete and asphalt backdrop one finds in television's Cops.
Merely imitating the natural world does not interest me. I am moved by the internal logic of paintings themselves, a world where things make sense somehow. Or almost don't. Where everything lives and breathes in tension held together by beauty and paint.
Pavement dissolves. Is it concrete or is it grass? Is it land or is it water? Landscape as we know it is mutating, disappearing. Anxiety, poignancy and sorrow join the traditional concerns of the genre. I am searching for something to love in this urban scene even as I long for the consolations of nature.
I am interested in the spaces between things, the unnoticed marginal spaces in the urban landscape. Likewise, as a painter I like painting in that unsettling place between abstraction and naturalism. I find inspiration in ordinary urban places such as parking lots and intersections. I am attracted to the anonymous and ubiquitous concrete and asphalt backdrop one finds in television's Cops.
Merely imitating the natural world does not interest me. I am moved by the internal logic of paintings themselves, a world where things make sense somehow. Or almost don't. Where everything lives and breathes in tension held together by beauty and paint.
Pavement dissolves. Is it concrete or is it grass? Is it land or is it water? Landscape as we know it is mutating, disappearing. Anxiety, poignancy and sorrow join the traditional concerns of the genre. I am searching for something to love in this urban scene even as I long for the consolations of nature.
