I fell in love with the somewhat fraught yet exhilarating experience of train travel when I moved to Europe in 2010. During graduate school, I’d purchase a rail ticket and ride out an hour or two and then back, willing myself to be transformed, captivated by the changing landscape, the feeling of rushing through space and time, attempting both to get lost and locate myself among the passing abstract shapes and colors. 

 

Inspired by that time, "Passing By the City", acrylic on canvas, 60 x 80 cm, is a multi-layered story capturing the unpredictability and lurking chaos of the outside world from the vantage point of a train car. My arrangements are schematic, inviting the viewer to move into a space of speculation—relying on one’s desires for beauty, poetics and seduction. Provoking the restlessness, excitement, and anticipation of train travel, of unexplored territories found by crossing country borders, and entering new municipalities, "Passing By the City" attempts to convey the sense that life is waiting, tempting the line between observer and participant.