TODD GORDON
Artist Statement
As a perceptual, realist painter, I am committed to the tradition and
rigorous practice of working only from observation. The industrial
zones in Brooklyn and Queens where I paint possess characteristics which
are specifically urban and uniquely American, yet they could just as
likely be neighborhoods in any of the Rust Belt towns I remember from my
childhood in the Midwest. My personal relationship with each place
begins with something I might see that initially interests me on a
formal or compositional level - the way a straight road seemingly bends
elliptically in space, the expansive curve or color of a bridge, the
interplay of graffiti on a corrugated metal fence - and gradually
develops or changes significance with each successive visit.
Eventually, the focus, subject, or very meaning of the work might shift
organically through the openness of the painting process itself. By
including as much information as possible, both literally and
physically, I attempt to avoid the typical sentimentality common,
historically, in most conventional landscape painting.
