Marc Trujillo

How do I decide what to paint? The places that interest me could be loosely categorized as a purgatory of everyday in-between spaces, North American kinds of nowhere, where people do not go to be there, as opposed to a destination point, like the Grand Canyon. A banal place like a food court gives the painting a shot at being more of an experience than the experience of the actual place, and to portray this kind of a place in a painting articulates skepticism about placelessness. I prefer subjects from the middle ground of common experience. Too high or too low of a subject plays too easily into sentimentality. The titles of the paintings are the addresses of the places they show. The titles then convey something absolutely specific and completely open-ended about the subjects at the same time.

The paintings are more synthetic than they may appear at first. The organization and composition are informed by the study of paintings and painters of the past and refined through stages of work starting with drawing. For example, the working method is similar to Corot’s, starting with a drawing to work out a composition and a tonal (light to dark) scheme; I do this, not because Corot did it, but because I feel that it works for the paintings. The painting itself is the acid test for everything that goes into making it. The distinction is an important one to me, if I used a fixed formula, then the formula would be the thing and not the painting.