Hotel By A Railroad 1952

Edward Hopper must have painted 'Hotel By A Railroad' with oil paint. It's got that way of the light just sitting on the surface. I love to imagine him, wrestling with the silence of the scene. What could he have been thinking as he built up those blues and tans? The man’s cigarette is so evocative, like a tiny, defiant gesture against all that emptiness. And the woman, lost in her book – is she really there, or just a figment of his imagination? Hopper's realism has that slight disquiet that I try to get in my own work. There's a shared language of colour and form, and a conversation across time. It’s all about capturing a feeling, isn’t it? The weight of the day, the pause before something happens. He’s not telling us what to think, just inviting us to feel it with him.