Paul Thiebaud Gallery is pleased to present GO, GO: A Transportation Show, a group exhibition featuring the works of Laura Adler, Jeff Bellerose, Tom Birkner, Fred Dalkey, Eileen David, David Fertig, Wayne Thiebaud, and Suong Yangchareon. Opening June 15, 2024, with a reception from 3-5 pm and an artist talk at 3:30pm, each of the eight exhibiting artists shares their unique perspective relating to forms of transportation in their paintings, variously conveying feelings of innovation, routine, freedom, and wonderment. The exhibition will be on view through August 17, 2024.
In this modern world, towering bridges, concrete multi-lane freeways, elevated overpasses, expansive stretches of roads, and linear railways dominate the foundation of transportation. By observing their surroundings each day, bridges have been a continual source of inspiration for Laura Adler, Jeff Bellerose and Eileen David. With the steel suspension and drawbridges in Bellerose’s and David’s works, the engineered structures cast shadows embracing crossing vehicles, while Adler’s thicker paint application results in a textured surface capturing the atmosphere of the day and the cozy tug boats puttering on the East River.
With an emphasis on a brighter palette and the mood of pleasure, Tom Birkner paints the open roads of the American West with its franchise offerings for travelers in need of a food stop, whereas Eileen David nostalgically renders vintage cars heading toward a vacation destination or a laidback and breezy Sunday drive. Focusing on symmetry, Fred Dalkey’s drawings in muted pastels and striking black conté crayon depict the intersecting vertical and horizontal lines of the Sacramento RT Light Rail public transit system, each eliciting a different feel in texture and character.
Suong Yangchareon’s paintings of an almost empty parking lot and the Chinatown Gold Line Station in Los Angeles reveal his fascination with the quietness found in otherwise heavily used destinations, leaving him the underlying infrastructure to be explored through form and color. Alternatively, in Freeway Curve and Downgrade, Wayne Thiebaud’s etched illustrations of engineered roadways manipulate the arteries of traffic as much as the eye of the viewer.
Though centuries from today’s modes of transit, David Fertig’s paintings of the Napoleonic and French Revolutionary wars depict older modes of transport, such as hussars on horseback scouting for the cavalry, and seamen sailing and rowing through choppy waters by ship and longboat. Fertig’s pushed brushstrokes capture cadence and unbridled intensity in the paint surface, heightening the drama of each scene.
Whether modern or historic modes of transportation, the artists in this exhibition portray their unique interpretations of how humans have developed and experience the roads, bridges, rails, and waterways that form the underpinnings of the modern world we live in.
