Parking Garage

Comment

Comment by Steve Dininno on July 24, 2012 at 5:21pm

Thank you for your insightful review of the two images. Your observations add to my own understanding of these pieces.

Comment by Resident Curator on July 24, 2012 at 10:18am

Curator’s Comment:

 

As an artist who makes paintings and prints, I’m intrigued by the solid impermeability of your paintings and the contrasting loose handling of your intaglio images.  Parking Garage offers a melancholy banality; softened shadows underscore the hard geometry and predictability of the conventional architectural structure.  The frequently changing directions of the light posts and cars move me through the space, but always in a grounded, anticipatory manner.  Color seems to remain intentionally muted, as not to detract from the reassuring solidity of form.  The smaller intaglio version is perplexingly active.  In comparing the compositions I understand it’s the sketchy line quality and value contrast that serves to animate the scene.  Darker areas/aquatints also permeate the image with a convincing grittiness, rather than the smooth transitions in the painted version.  I see this particularly in the light posts, which punctuate the horizontal plane and either thrust energetically upward, as in the etching, or anchor the vertical axis of the acrylic painting.  Your cityscapes are at once familiar, and yet surprise me in the formal decision making.  It makes me contemplate if I really have seen these spaces afterall.