Following the housing-market collapse of 2008, the local landscape became the focus of my work. However, these paintings are only marginally landscapes. They are perhaps more accurately called “house portraits” or “site portraits”. In the hyper-entrepreneurial ethos of modern American life I call them real estate paintings.
The houses I painted are ubiquitous in western Michigan and across the Midwest. They are so numerous that we don’t examine them individually; we don’t discriminate between them. Why would we? Their sheer numbers necessarily correlate them with a large socio-economic segment of our population. The inhabitants are certainly not very wealthy, and not likely to be impoverished (though less certainly so). Not extraordinary; but very much at the center of the economic and political landscape of Michigan.
One could not make these paintings without inviting some comparison with American Scene Painting. However, in attitude or emotional tone, I am probably more influenced by contemporary vernacular photography. Indeed, my original inspiration for these paintings was the very tiny, matter-of-fact images contained in real estate magazines---factual, unvarnished, and documentary.
The houses I painted are ubiquitous in western Michigan and across the Midwest. They are so numerous that we don’t examine them individually; we don’t discriminate between them. Why would we? Their sheer numbers necessarily correlate them with a large socio-economic segment of our population. The inhabitants are certainly not very wealthy, and not likely to be impoverished (though less certainly so). Not extraordinary; but very much at the center of the economic and political landscape of Michigan.
One could not make these paintings without inviting some comparison with American Scene Painting. However, in attitude or emotional tone, I am probably more influenced by contemporary vernacular photography. Indeed, my original inspiration for these paintings was the very tiny, matter-of-fact images contained in real estate magazines---factual, unvarnished, and documentary.
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