Patricia Chidlaw‘s vision of Southern California doesn’t reflect any of the things we typically associate with the area. There is no Hollywood glam, no surfer cool. Instead her landscape paintings depict a decaying, enigmatic California, eerily empty of humans yet filled with their imprint. Like mystery film stills, there is a sense of narrative to the paintings, but it’s up to the viewer to interpret them. She explains:
I usually call my work “Urban Landscapes” to distinguish them as paintings about areas of human habitation rather than landscapes that reference the natural world. But my subjects are certainly not all urban – some are suburban, some small towns and some are ruins, such as a faded sign and abandoned business bleaching in the desert sun as once populated areas return to their former empty silence.
View more of Chidlaw’s work here.
(via Faith Is Torment)