Loads of what you do is about infrastructure, just like a few of my all-time favourite painters like Charles Sheeler and Charles Demuth, who had been a part of the Precisionism motion and made these work of business buildings and infrastructure within the Nineteen Twenties and ’30s. In addition to graffiti, do you see your self in that kind of American custom of constructing artwork about trade and the infrastructure, that kind of pre- and post-Despair period model?
I actually really feel that freight practice graffiti is an American people artwork. Although I’ve by no means thought of it that means, I can see a stable comparability to the Precisionism motion. I just like the clear geometry of the railcars in addition to the logos and stenciled data that adorns the trains. Form of like Charles Demuth’s I Noticed the Determine 5 in Gold. There may be additionally the economic look of rivets, ribs, doorways and ladders and the shadows they create that I discover compelling in creating these photos. You even have the exact traces and geometric types within the graffiti.
However I’m additionally drawn to seeing how orderly mechanicalism begins to fail, whereas the Precisionists had been impressed by its clear look and energy, I consider. I just like the dichotomy you will have with these big metal vessels which can be slowly deteriorating as a consequence of climate and time, however inside them are these new and glossy merchandise ready for use.
The unique paint jobs on the trains typically additionally stay from railroads that now not exist and have solely been renamed and numbered to the bigger rail firm that purchased them out, however didn’t hassle with rebranding all the automotive to the brand new possession. Then, in fact, you will have the colourful graffiti utilized as the following unsanctioned layer to the unique that satirically might be even defending in opposition to some rust and decay! Collectively it could actually all seem fairly chaotic, like many stamps of time.
By portray plenty of the previous, decommissioned practice logos in my work, I wish to suppose I’m preserving an period of the railroads when there have been many extra brief traces with a heavy branding push to distinguish one transport firm from the following, acknowledged by means of emblem design and colours. That very same thought may nearly be used to explain graffiti.
