Jason Kowalski | "Highway Rambler" | Sue Greenwood Fine Art | June 1 - July 18

JASON KOWAL SKI

Cover: Home Cooked Meals Oil on wood 28" x 42" $7,750

J ASON KOWAL SKI Highway Rambler June 1 – July 18, 2021 Artist’s Reception June 3, 6-9 pm

SGFA SUE GREENWOOD FINE ART 330 north coast hwy laguna beach, ca 92651 949.494.0669 suegreenwoodfineart.com

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J ASON KOWAL SKI

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hat do the front bumper of a 1967 Volkswagen Bug, an abandoned motel, and a rusting roadside business sign have in common? To most of us, they’re just remnants—dusty, man-made artifacts of a bygone era. To Jason Kowalski, though, they’re beautiful and inextricable features of the American landscape, and he honors these objects and places with skilled and careful brushstrokes. In fact, Jason not only has a painterly reverence for his subjects, but also a personal reverence for the stories their nuanced and time-weathered patinas, colors, and reflections tell.

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n their surfaces—in fact, even beneath them, in the forms of collaged vintage newspaper clippings, catalog pages, and magazine ads—his paintings celebrate iconographic Americana. In the tradition of classically trained American Realists, Jason remains faithful to his representations, but with an always alluring and sometimes playful nostalgia for a simpler time. His close, yet non-obsessive, attention to detail is what allows us to see the VW’s dented chrome bumper and to imagine hearing its sputtering engine; to view the arid

landscape and to almost feel its ambient heat; and to recognize the abandoned gas station and to smell the far away fumes that once permeated its uniformed attendants’ hands. In this way, Jason’s paintings are both affirmations and invitations— remembrances of the Great American Road Trip and provocations of our sensory memories from its forgotten outposts.

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o, looking into a Jason Kowalski painting, and not just at one, subverts our very notions of beauty, memorabilia, and collectability. If we’re lucky, we may own a Jason Kowalski painting. The wood, the canvas, the paper, and the oils can belong to us, but the subjects Jason paints belong only to time. And this is why Jason paints, and why we can be thankful that he will continue to paint.

Mike Stice

Author, Wolfgang Bloch: The Colors of Coincidence (Chronicle Books, 2008) Former Professor, Laguna College of Art + Design Former Arts Commissioner, City of Laguna Beach

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Sweet Spot Oil on wood 20" x 20" $3,750

Almost Famous Oil on wood 36" x 54" $13,000

Glorious Getaway Oil on wood 54" x 36" $13,000

Travelin’ and No Trail Oil on wood 24" x 32" $5,800

American Service Station Oil on wood 12" x 16" $2,000

Reminiscent Oil on wood 14.5" x 21" $2,850

Cattleman’s Oil on wood 16" x 12" $2,000

Fun in the Sun Oil on wood 36" x 36" $8,000

Elmer’s Mercantile Oil on wood 30" x 30" $7,000

Nightly Entertainment Oil on wood 24" x 24" $5,000

Texaco Station Oil on wood 20" x 20" $3,750

Joy Ride Oil on wood 10" x 15" $2,000

“I am interested in objects that have a past. Their story is often forgotten and their characteristics of being worn out, broken and old are commonly seen as unattractive.

I value nostalgia and believe that every antique has a fascinating story. Preservation does not always equal restoration. To honor the stories of the past, I paint places/objects as they exist in the world today. There is beauty in the undone, the abandoned, and in the shadows of a greatness that once was.”

Sweet Spot (detail, full image on page 7)

SGFA SUE GREENWOOD FINE ART 330 north coast hwy laguna beach, ca 92651 949.494.0669 suegreenwoodfineart.com

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artsy.net/sue-greenwood-fine-art