This work is a product of time spent pondering the way in which car culture perpetually allures us to degrade the environment and our physical and social health. My initial thought process revolved around the aesthetics of nature, destruction, and the quotidian. And as the work progressed, I focused on images of cars and buildings related to car culture. I chose images of nighttime, winter scenes to emphasize desolate, bleak atmosphere and highly-lit, cinematic appeal.
I found the fluidity, unpredictability of watercolor to be important in conveying the unsettling beauty of gas stations and cars, with their sterile, clean lines and reproducibility. As I worked more with watercolor, the depth of tone I could achieve by layering colors became essential, too, to the aesthetic of these high-contrast, illuminated scenes.
