A Long Ride

Unframed - mounted on alumalite panel.

I grew up in Illinois, which is not considered one of the prairies states that lie west of the Mississippi River. However, Illinois is quite flat, and whenever I visited my grandparents or uncles in the farming belt, I would be struck by the repetitive and expansive landscape - field after field of corn and soybeans. I imagine that the early settlers moving westward were struck by the vast, lonely and foreboding prairie lands - literally, an uncharted ocean of grass.

This is the first in a series of prairie landscapes I am doing which are quite unusual in their format and perhaps more contemporary than my typical work. The positioning of the rider at the extreme right-hand edge of the painting is intentionally edgy and emphasizes the long ride, across a wide and mostly vacant landscape. I imagine that this type of painting would fit quite well on a wall space that called out for a long, narrow piece of art!