Still haven't found a location for my next rainy Roadside America painting so I got on with this one after seeing this sky over the sea playing boules on Brighton seafront last week. I needed a flat horizon for the sky to work so I chose a lonely location in Texas.
Most of the paintings in this series are kind of about man and his (her!) position in the natural world i.e. pretty small! I often choose abandoned or run down examples of human activity within a vast and often hostile landscape (which is why I often choose the desert states of South West America) as though they are kind of facing a losing battle against the elements. If it's an urban scene I always have them deserted as though something terrible may have happened like post nuclear holocaust or climatic catastrophe... or at least an ambiguous hint at that. I'm looking for beauty but tinged with unease and in this case melancholy - a beautiful sky but nobody there to witness it. Nature just carries on while we live our little lives regardless of the bigger picture that we are changing the climate to make things worse for ourselves. Nature adapts and carries on regardless of our welfare, we think short term while Nature will go on for many millions of years whether we hang around or not.
One day I will gather all the threads that make up the content of these paintings together and write down a coherent explanation of what I'm up to.
Oil on linen 22" x 16"
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting including what colours I used in previous posts on this blog.
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