Shelter

February 5 - 29, 2020

Opening Reception:

Friday, February 7, 6-8pm

Artist Talk:

Saturday, February 8, 11:30am

A shelter can be a roof over your head, sometimes providing comfort, protection and security. My pictured shelters depict a sense of loss, destruction or abandonment. The found locations were simple houses, farms, or neighborhoods in stages of disrepair. Of course there is rust, peeling paint, broken windows, and rotting wood. These sites have been discarded for better economic hope and less conflict somewhere else. You see, I know something about these kinds of fading places. My parents and grandparents came from poverty and lived blue-collar, ramshackle lives…survivors of the Great Depression. I mean dirt floors and baths once a week on Saturday nights. I have visited dozens of these sorts of places and all hold a continuing fascination. The commonality is that these structures are simple shapes usually made with hand tools.

These places were visited, then photographed, sketched, remembered, or re-discovered in some kind of archive. The structures become the focus of paintings and represent lives passed over…dreams extinct. I am only the interpreter of these derelict buildings from Oregon, Illinois, New York, Florida, Mexico, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Morocco, New Mexico, Wyoming, the Carolinas and Georgia.