The story behind the “Fair Ride” paintings

Also in the exhibit currently at Second Street Gallery until September 27, 2024 are paintings on wooden panels inspired by fair rides at night. As a youth, the annual fair coming to rural southside Virginia was a magical and exciting contrast from daily life. To reignite these memories I sketched and painted while watching and listening to videos of people filming while riding rides on YouTube. Beyond the blur of bright colorful lights, the videos feature much loud music and screaming, both of these influenced the paintings in color and gesture.

The paintings on wooden panels present a method of exploring transparency that is brand new to me and was a response to painting on clear film. It involves suspending acrylic paint on top of a layer of clear thick acrylic gel. It took many attempts before developing an application that worked for me. Clarity between the layers also took experimentation with colors and their values. I am eager to investigate this method further as it presents endless possibilities in color combinations.