Damen Ave Nocturne

Description

This painting is based on resource photographs I took under the Damen Ave Brown Line station in Chicago. I used a flash at night to compress the space and bring the trees and fence into sharp focus.

The urban landscape is always in flux. Like a time-lapse film of progress, we see buildings torn down to be replaced with newer, bigger constructions. Graffiti tags an empty lot, weeds grow in every direction.

I am seeking a moment that, when painted, transcends mundane expectations to reveal an intensely present experience in the varied strokes of paint. For example, “Woman Walking,” set in a Burger King parking lot explores what is unseen. The abstracted figure moves past the viewer, ghost-like, framed by the structures of the building and electrical transformers behind her as acidic light pools around her both illuminating her passage and seeming to disperse it.