Barn on Wilder Drive Painting

As a Midwesterner, I understand how central farming is to life. And for farm families, barns aren’t only practical and aesthetically pleasing; they’re a sort of totem that embodies memories, livelihoods, and traditions. In this way, barns and the landscape and skies that surround them express a new take on American Regionalism- a sort of neo-regionalism. The original regionalists, such as Grant Wood, communicated that idea through agriculture and topography. For Marvin Cone, it was skies and his own version of barn paintings. Essentially, neo-regionalism elevates the Midwest aesthetic by isolating and focusing on what’s iconic about life here- the sky, earth, agriculture, home, people, community, and more. My barn paintings are a distillation of this aesthetic.