Times Square III 2015

Patrick Pietropoli painted "Times Square III" with visible brushstrokes and a muted color palette. You can almost feel the way he worked and reworked the surface, building up layers through trial and error. I can imagine Pietropoli standing before the canvas, grappling with the weight and texture of the paint, the way the pigment moved under the brush. Look at how he constructed the buildings with a series of vertical marks. There is a real energy in that gesture. It makes me think about the way the light hits the city at a certain time of day, almost dissolving the architecture into light and shadow. These urban scenes make me think of Rackstraw Downes, another painter who finds such beauty in the overlooked corners of the built environment. Painting is about a conversation across time and place, inspiring one another to see the world anew and embrace ambiguity.