PA Turnpike #4

The newest painting in the Turnpike series is completed and I'm very pleased with it. It is an odd scene from the modern Pennsylvanian landscape depicting a strange dichotomy in the natural topography supported by the composition as well as the weather conditions of the particular day I took the picture in the fall of 2008. I painted the electrical station and wires running across the front with a rough, imposing motion. This imposing motion highlights the station, with the cloud-cover supporting this feeling, by breaking just at that point where the station sits on the mountain-side and leaving the wires and trees in the foreground brilliantly lit by direct sunlight. The background is shadowed by the clouds and causes the interesting, rainbow-like color transition, from the bottom to the top of the piece.

The electric station seems to impose on the landscape as I painted it because of our nation's new interest in "green" technology. When it was built it was probably described in this light as a "shining jewel" of progress. In this new "green" modern perspective, it may be described as destructive of a large swath of the mountainside foliage. When lit as it is, it burns darkly, a scarring reminder of the wasteful, arrogant destruction, lack of creative discipline and environmental consideration in our methods used in technological development of the existing power grid.

In this painting I was fascinated by this composition and the beauty of the subject matter. The composition and supporting symbolism celebrates the beauty of the Pennsylvania landscape as it appears at the time it represents. It is a typical scene one might see driving along the Pennsylvania Turnpike across the unfathomably beautiful State of Pennsylvania. Please take a ride, see it for yourself, and perhaps you'll see this very sight. Take a picture and interpret it in your own way.