Jarring

"Storage Yard Nocturne"   SOLD

oil on panel, 2010

5"x 7" (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

Horizon Fine Art Gallery

Industrial nocturne, just after a rain. Combining four of my favorite image elements or subjects; the nocturne, the industrial, rain, and a simple composition.

Much like I said in my post 'Of the Night' / "Nocturne-Lucy(Cat)", the simple image can be tricky. It needs to have something to hold your attention, some quality that stirs up memories, emotions, some drama... anything to prevent it from being boring.

Here a crisp cool night, a dark blue clearing sky, the scene soaked in the yellow sodium street light, the slick wet textured street, the harder lines of the foreground offset by the lingering fog.

Dangerously close to being too simple, the power pole, dissecting the composition just off center was needed to provide a jarring effect. Without it or the lit up electrical box at the far right the image isn't as compelling to me. Hopefully this painting is provocative to others in some way, so that the industrial motif is secondary.44

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