Destination Unknown Painting

Old masters to contemporary painters, I enjoy any work with a certain mastery of skill and attention to detail. I am somehow drawn to old things, forgotten things, and a certain quality of workmanship of the past. I have always loved neon, the sense of memory it invokes and the fact that it is both so bold and fragile at the same time. It really brings me to a certain mood, transports me somewhere else, and gives me and almost cinematic sense of the world around me, which is what I wanted to capture with this piece. The hardest part about something like this is capturing the essence of neon in a material that is completely opaque. It took careful study of the structure of the signs themselves and learning how color changes as it reflects off nearby objects. The paint color had to be pure, so planning and keeping the palette organized was key. I always work big to small, blocking in large shapes and slowly closing in on the end result. In order to make the light shine, the rest had to be dark, which also ended up being the mood of the work. It makes me think about countless motels and rest stops across the country I have been to when you are on the road by yourself and just your thoughts. Many times, I have arrived at places like this late at night, when you are unaware of where you really are until the gloom of night is lifted and the town comes alive the next morning. Usually it is not very surprising, but the thoughts you have in those in between moments are where the neon lives.