Sunday, April 22, 2007



Loading Dock at Night

oil on board, 6"x6"
SOLD

This piece is already sold but I'm posting it as an example of a series of night paintings I've been working on for several months. You can see more of them on my main website, under the "Recent Works" heading. The paintings range from six inches wide to over six feet. Sorry you'll have to hunt for them a bit, as the series is scattered through a variety of paintings.

Prowling the malls and business parks late at night while searching for subjects has made me a suspicious character in the eyes of the security guards. I do my best to look innocent while handing them my portfolio of paintings to prove I'm just a harmless eccentric.

I think I like doing these nighttime views because this is the kind of urban and suburban geography so many of us inhabit. It has become so ingrained in our cultural landscape that it is almost invisible. These are the spaces only half-glimpsed from the corner of your eye while you search for a parking place. But swept clean of people and cars, under the glare of mercury and neon, the austere corporate architecture reveals itself as stage set. These places need the energy and hum of human activity to complete them.

I'm not trying to be judgmental with these paintings. I'm more interested in a kind of journalistic neutrality--I simply try to observe and record. What is recorded may seem at once familiar and strange. I would hope it might reveal a little of us to ourselves.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Great mystery and light in this little painting Don, your gift of re-infusing the commonplace with drama and grace is on full display here. I love the "Budget" truck as well, slyly in keeping with the scale and price of the painting !

Don Gray said...

Thanks a lot, Marc.

A Reason to Paint said...

Don I really enjoyed looking through your website - it's always exciting to find another nocturnal painter