Cityscapes

It seems the urban environment speaks to me in an ever-louder voice. I see so many buildings that call out to be painted. Since I'm not a figure painter, painting the places that people inhabit is my way of showing the human condition. Our structures say a lot about us. Many of my recent paintings depict scenes near my studio in Lawrenceville. A lesson I learned from my very first painting class still applies: paint what you know.

Many interesting row houses are being demolished, leaving vacant lots. I've captured these empty spaces in a few new paintings: Fences, Twin Peaks and Vacant Lot. Often, a shadow from another structure outside the picture plane enters the image. I think this creates the illusion of extending the painting beyond what I have shown. Edward Hopper used parallel lines such as railroad tracks to create the same illusion.