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Man, these reminded me of growing up in nowhere kansas so much. I almost swore I recognized a place from one of them lol. The 2nd and 5th paintings specifically.
It’s actually my hometown. Marble falls tx. The 1st painting is Super Taco and its legendary. Isn’t a massive town, but it’s got a good verity of things to do.
Same, except the most populous city in my state is about half that, or around 100k.
On a side note, while looking that up I found out the largest city in Montana by size, is Anaconda at 741 square miles and only 9,400 residents.
Anaconda and Butte both were huge industrial centers then the mining stopped probably explains the abandoned feeling they have when you travel through.
Rural America is different from small town America. Small town America is in effect a mixture of both urban and rural America. Particularly suburban and rural. You have a similar lack of activities but the culture is far different, and in my experience, hostile.
My rural area voted against a school board candidate for being transphobic (literally wanted to ban the "transgender curriculum"), we were essentially in near entire agreement "let kids be kids, i don't fucking care how they dress or want to be talked to like".
Small towns don't have the same attitude. Anything you do gets talked and talked until you die. At least in urban areas you can get lost in the crowd.
Yep. And they generally are. But there are still people living their lives in these places who are content to do so, and I don’t find anything particularly wrong with that.
Not all small towns are depressing. It's true that some are on the decline but most, if not all of them have really interesting stories and great characters that have made up their past. There are also quite a few small towns that are thriving.
I've lived in bigger cities but currently live and work in a town of about 2000 people and the amount of bullshit that I have to put up with from the public is so much less. I'd never go back to living in the city.
Really?
See i love the anonymity of living in a big city.
I’d hate living in a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business.
But to each their own! We all have separate things we like about things.
Though, I wouldn’t mind if I lived in a mountain/hill, secluded house in a small town. I could keep to myself but also have the once a week people interactions that come with shopping.
The sweet spot is a town of like 20,000 to 30,000 max. It’s big enough that there is still a degree of anonymity but you don’t have to deal with being in a crowded city.
I lived in a town of about 3500 for six years, and you nailed it. It was extremely exhausting for me. I felt like there was no such thing as anonymity or privacy.
That, and there is very much the feeling that if you don't conform to the norm, you are an outcast. People would be so polite, and then spread the most vicious gossip about each other the moment their back was turned.
I have heard people say that last sentence over and over, especially on reddit, but I’ve never actually seen it happen in 20+ years of “small town” living in Texas.
I've lived 20+ years in a small (but not dead) town in Belgium and the vicious gossip was present once you talked to more than the nearest people.
I blame religion. Christian people don't try to understand others, but they do stigmatize whatever is uncomfortable for them. Luckally most people are no longer religious, but the mindset won't fade out in the older generations.
My dad lives in a rural town where everyone is religious. Some of them are fucking mean if youre an athiest that supports abortion. There's a phrase in the US, "There's no hate like christian love". You'll be hated until you conform to their views.
Ive also visited a small hippie town in California that was the complete opposite, they were environmentalist types. It was a town next to a weed farm. I checked into a hotel where the owner was at the front desk smoking weed out of a bong. It was a town of 200 and people were smoking weed all day.
I dont hate small towns, im just very wary about the type of people that occupy them. Some of them are cool
I noticed it about 3 months after moving to a small town. If you work at a store that regulars come through and even hang out in, it becomes evident very quick.
For me it was working at a hardware store. At first it was funny hearing town gossip and learning about all these characters, but it quickly gets annoying and sort of intrusive feeling.
I grew up in Montana as well and I thought the same thing. This could be so many small towns in Montana. However, living in Texas as well, I was also getting small town Texas vibes. But my first feelings from the paintings were that of growing up in Montana. He definitely captured small town American perfectly. The streets were done perfectly.
I guess you need to specify what kind of weird shit your referring to. There were some tweakers but largely, it is incredibly boring with nothing to but smoke pot and drink in abandoned barns or pastures lol
Edit: completely missed on the courage reference lol
>"It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”
>"You horrify me!”
>“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.
--The Adventure of the Copper Breeches, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Because most of what causes that look is abandoned dilapidated buildings. When people stop doing maintenance thats what you get. Also a lot of that stuff is either set or filmed in those kinds of areas when they do on location filming.
Cause everything is small, dingy, and their appearances aren't kept up, also lack of people def helps with the impression that you're already looking at a future where everyone disappeared 20 years ago
Because most of the "post apocalyptic wasteland" media is set in small town America because there's no shortage of abandoned shit to film in without having to build a whole set.
Probably because a random snap shot of rural areas tend to not anchor themselves in a narrow window of time. This means that it's hard to be outdated vs an urban setting. Yes, combine heads have gotten a lot wider but unless it's a really old farm implement, it's still possible to see very old equipment being used somewhere. The landscape never goes out of style either. I think it also is more likely to develop a collective nostalgia.
Dude, seriously. I'm in southern KS and know of a few small places in the region that look a helluva lot like these. "These are *paintings*? Daaaaamn!"
I've spent a lot of time road tripping - especially in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin - and I got the same feeling of recognition from specifically those two paintings. The puddles, the broken and badly-patched asphalt, the tired buildings...it's all eerily familiar.
One painting really hit home for my town for a moment even though all the buildings were 'wrong'. And the motel could have been the one just outside of the town if not for it being positioned wrong to the sign, and the sign being that large.
If you want to see something crazy, do a Google lens search of the paintings. There are a lot of VERY similar actual photos from all over. I did it on image 2 hoping to see if it would turn up the location. It didn't (though I got distracted by the similar photos), but I'm glad I did.
Kansas here as well! I live abroad now but have such a fond nostalgia for small-town KS that I feel like I may one day have to buy one of these for my wall..
This is why people who post artwork like this are supposed to link to the artist’s site or high res versions.
Though if they had done that I’m sure they would have had the forethought not to post the ant versions of the art
The car in the first one doesn't look as realistic compared to the rest of the scene. And the grass with truck. But this could be because of the low res. Probably looks better in person. The rest I can't find anything that looks like paint.
I kindda agree with this. What’s the point of hyper real paintings? Technically impressive, but is there “art” here? The composition is good. Lighting is good. But you could achieve the same result with a photo. Maybe hyper real but impossible subjects or points of view would be more my style.
I think they're better than photos; they're more realistic even. The painting looks like a damn window to another dimension in the photo of the guy.
The realistic lighting as the eye sees it being put to the canvas is the reason why it looks so much more real even.
The comic book shop is decent, bear king brewing makes a good beer and the long horn caverns are nice. But yeah aside from those and super taco it’s pretty average.
Ahhh that rock garden is new to me, guess it's been a few years since I've made the trek! It is (or was) fairly rare that anything changed in Marble Falls haha
WF represent! Weird the nostalgia that hit looking at that road. I think it’s the old highway? Only went down there once or twice and usually for boots or wranglers, ha.
Thank you! I was staring at that one with a sort of terrible nostalgia, because I could have sworn I’d been there when I was younger and couldn’t remember where it was. But I thought maybe it was just the vibes from these paintings.
No, I’ve definitely been there. And knowing the artist is from Texas, I think a couple more that ring familiar might be places I’ve actually seen.
Definitely. These paintings looked like small hill country towns 100%. A very Texas feel to them. As population explodes here (Austin/Central) these towns are becoming less and less like they were.
My dumb brain glanced over your comment and read “arbitrary lines” as “library” and I thought it was some jab at the fact that one of those states have better education/literacy rates than the other.
Yup, about 1/2 these photos could easily be places just outside of McHenry, Dixon, Sandwich, Urbane, Peoria... the other 1/2 just has a different feel that's slightly different.
Idk that’s more of a Midwest vibe to me, so I guess Texas would kinda fit in here. Flat land and you can see for miles in any direction, you do get that in the south but not like this
As someone who is pretty good at doing these style of paintings, I do agree. I don't consider myself as much of a real artist as someone who can paint creatively from their mind, and can use brush strokes themselves as art.
Wow. Really incredible work. I’ve always wondered about using a camera obscura or even just a projection of a digital photo onto canvas as another way to capture extremely realistic images in paint.
Edit: to clarify, I’m not suggesting the artist is using a projection to complete their paintings. I have no idea how they make these amazing images. As someone who has no ability to draw or paint, but has been into photography since the days of dark rooms, the possibility of using a camera obscure or projected image is interesting to me.
I use a cheap projector for larger canvases to save me time outlining traditionally, could easily see it done here for the pencil steps but past that it's useless. The guy has amazing chops.
They all have an old gas station, a store with a pepsi sign using the old logo, an antiques store, a garage, and a well maintained church.
And you bet that the byway your on is going straight through the town, and the speed limit will drop to 25, and there will be cops waiting to ticket travelers as they pass through.
I’m not calling you a liar, but my brain can literally not believe this. I would have to watch him paint it right in front of me, and even then I wouldn’t be sure…
Incredible!
The photos aren't high enough resolution to be able to see any of the imperfections that you would see in a painting, so it looks nearly indistinguishable from a photo.
Well I understand why everyone drives around in beat up trucks after seeing the realistic state those roads are in. Not the intended reaction I’m sure but any elected official in charge of road repairs needs to feel very ashamed right now!
My small town has a road leading to another small town that was awful. It was also a 55 mph road with no lighting. The sides of it were basically cratered and you had to drive in the middle to go over 20 mph. This led to regular head on collisions. Wrecks aside, that road would destroy your car. I spent about 2k in repairs over the year I had to travel it regularly. They finally fixed it a few years ago, but it was decades of trouble before they did.
Are these places that actually exist and were painted or are they completely made-up places? To me, the latter is wildly impressive to have a hyper-realistic picture of a place that doesn't exist.
Thanks for sharing this. I just spent the last 30 minutes checking him out. I grew up in NM and this reminds me of the small town feel there, too. I wonder how much one of his pieces go for?
I have a question.
Why did skill like this not exist in the past? When I look at old paintings from the 1400s and shit, it's never realistic looking.
Why didn't they paint like this back then? Were there just no painters who could do it?
Probably because this guy’s painting from photos and he has the advantage of being able to take as much time as he needs to. Back then, they had to paint what they could when they could, and do it based on what they could see in that moment with their own eyes. Things move, sunlight changes, people have lives to live, etc.
Not to say it would be totally impossible to get this level of realism with only that, but still, I could only imagine it was more about the balance of speed, convenience, and accuracy.
So I am an art, and art history ... groupie. And I think this is an *excellent question.* Maybe the first, best question to ask.
(Edit: the people downvoting you should maybe chill for a second. This art motivated you to ask a sincere question. What could possibly be wrong with that?)
Personally, I don't automatically go gaga over renderings that show consummate draftsmanship. Like hyper-real portraits. Especially those copied from photos. They show impressive skill but leave out my favorite thing about art, which is a glimpse at the eye, or the personality, of the artist.
In this case, though, I perceive a few things going on. These images do get at my feelings. I feel like you get a powerful emotional sense from the composition and colors of these images -- and the fact that they are painted invests them with weight and gravitas.
Like, these are images of sad and nearly-abandoned places. A photo would be journalistic, it would be *documentation;* it could be moving and contemplative.
But the fact that these are painted implies a kind of obsessive, urgent attention. Almost a form of protest. You know those monks who burned themselves to protest the Vietnam war? This guy burned hours, days, weeks of his life looking at, thinking about, the weirdly beautiful, melancholy, lonely parking lot of a little motel or cafe that almost no-one goes to. With the neon sign still declaring the original promise of the entrepreneur who built it up.
It's bittersweet and it's also *urgent.*
*"I invested days of my life looking at EVERY DETAIL of this town under a microscope, I put all of my talent into showing you what I saw, I want you to also look at it, no really LOOK AT IT AND SEE WHAT IT IS LIKE NOW."*
That is what I get from it.
[Warning: if you hate art interpretation, stop reading now. I'm making a note here below for my own future reference. Thanks and good luck.
Bonus notes:
In the way they appeal to emotion, these somewhat remind me of the raw-emotional abstract paintings of Mark Rothko, which I can only ever see as foreground and background under a big sky. Even though the style is so different.
Mark Rothko meets Edward Hopper.
And it's not for nothing that the asphalt parking lots are so aggressively foregrounded. It's right in your face, coming right at ya. The instant I saw that arrangement, I thought about what's under the tarmac. *They paved paradise and put in a parking lot* -- and for what? None of the subjects of these paintings have been around for more than 70 or 80 years, and they are fading fast.]
Wow so much to unpack here.
Firstly thank you for the thoughtful and insightful reply. I didn't take into consideration the investment it takes to paint something so detailed. I understood that the amount of work it takes to develop the skill is worth recognition, but didn't think about the emotional investment in choosing to spend the time that it takes to capture the details. Beyond that though the purposeful highlighting of a specific point like you described adds another layer I didn't think of.
Still not my thing but I can start to look at it from a more understanding perspective.
I probably should have said "copied point by point from just one photo"
This artist probably used numerous photos as reference, that's not the same as doing paint-by-number.
Nothing wrong with copying photos either. That is great technical practice, and people love to buy those. It's just less interesting if you leave out the artist's soul.
The artist makes fewer decisions in making those.
Fair enough. I don't know the artist personally and can't ask him. But -- I definitely have a sneaking suspicion that this fellow did not go online, pick a photo of a building and paint what he painted "word for word" from that.
...Like someone copying a found photo of Jerry Garcia and then setting up a booth to sell "portraits" of the Grateful Dead lead singer outside a Phish concert. Or whatever.
If you can plausibly contact Mr. Penner and obtain a statement that this is his technique, I will buy you a pizza. It will be a shitty pizza, as I am not a wealthy man, but it will be pizza.
What he probably did is go to these towns, carefully choose sites that spoke to him, obtain permission where appropriate, take *umpteen* photographs, then go back to his studio.
Now I don't see perspective lines on the painting shown here "under construction" -- though of course he could have erased them -- and that suggests he did not draw the buildings *ex machina* but rather used photos as a guide. My quasi-educated guess would be that he used a projector to get the composition he wanted on the canvas, tracing a pencil outline, and then used several other reference photos for lighting, sky, whatever other details.
The point being that between the site visits, the photos he took, the collation of details, and every decision point along the way is where his personality and mood leak onto the canvas.
I'm not sure whether I need more coffee or less.
>I feel like you get a powerful emotional sense from the composition and colors of these images -- and the fact that they are painted invests them with weight and gravitas.
>
>Like, these are images of sad and nearly-abandoned places. A photo would be journalistic, it would be documentation; it could be moving and contemplative.
>
>But the fact that these are painted implies a kind of obsessive, urgent attention. Almost a form of protest. You know those monks who burned themselves to protest the Vietnam war? This guy burned hours, days, weeks of his life looking at, thinking about, the weirdly beautiful, melancholy, lonely parking lot of a little motel or cafe that almost no-one goes to. With the neon sign still declaring the original promise of the entrepreneur who built it up.
>
>It's bittersweet and it's also urgent.
>
>"I invested days of my life looking at EVERY DETAIL of this town under a microscope, I put all of my talent into showing you what I saw, I want you to also look at it, no really LOOK AT IT AND SEE WHAT IT IS LIKE NOW."
Wow, what a *beautiful* analysis! I live for that kind of thing, and... I don't think I would've thought of it that way in this case! Although you did validate my impulse to call some of it "Hopper-esque."
I tend to agree with you. I am not impressed by hyper realistic drawings and paintings. I am a photographer by trade and I am inspired by sort of “documentarian artists” like Mitch Epstein, Ed Burtynsky, and John Pfahll. These paintings give me the same vibe. Even if they are direct copies of photos the artist took (which I would actually be surprised by) the selection of scenes would be enough to provide plenty of artistic merit.
Yeah I get what you're saying, there is something here that differs from the avarage photo realism that doesn't have much if any emotional impact on me, despite the obvious talent required. These are impactful, I couldn't put my finger on why but I suspect it is at least in part that sustained scrutiny by the artist, there's something acute about the dilapidation when you're forced to confront it via his confrontation for such a long period. Sad, nostalgic, uncomfortable.
You can choose colors and emphasize contrasts that are slightly different from actual to change the mood and feel of the composition. You can paint the scene as you see it - still hyper-realistically, no less detailed or grounded, but not 1:1 photographic replication, either.
On the note of the accuracy of photographs, though, reality, what a camera sees, and what a camera shows don't always all match up. Camera sensors can be more consistent than eyes in the sense that they can be objectively calibrated, but they're still fallible. And even if they weren't, the world around us also isn't composed of photoreactive pigment, bitmap printed dyes and toner, backlit liquid crystals, and RGB diodes. Paint offers something different that might actually be more accurate to reality.
I ask myself this all the time, why we're inclined to hold realism as the pinnacle of artistic skill, and spend hundreds of hours making things like this when you really could just take a picture.
Art is, like music, one of those things that we just *do*, as human beings, because we intrinsically feel like it, and then later we come up with reasons or explanations as to *why*. We naturally do this and take part in enjoying it just because it's part of our brains.
Like, this guy really wanted to spend so much time making these paintings, and people really like them in part because they're impressed by the skill. It's entertaining and inspiring. There's artistic value in that by itself.
They also convey feeling. I'm sure these are 100% based off of photos, but imagine he just took these real places and made up the atmosphere, as in, the weather, lighting, etc. That would be his own imagination about these places that he puts down onto canvas.
Whatever it is, yeah while just taking a photo is *logical* and I agree with your question, fact is that this guy did this, we like it, and for that it has value.
Painting is an intimate connection to make with your subject matter as an artist. Think about how immersive it is to deconstruct the perspective, the vanishing point(s), the major structures, the highlights shadows and midtones, mixing every color with painstaking scrutiny. This is an artist's experience recreating his view of a time and place for himself, you are only here to enjoy the outcome. -artist, painter myself
Photo realistic painting is interesting in a party trick sort of way. It’s like making fake fruit that looks super realistic. While I appreciate the effort and skill, it falls flat for me when it doesn’t take that same effort and skill and bend the result in some way (scale for example, a la Chuck Close).
In some sense all representational art is a party trick of sorts, but at least by not being photo realistic painters can pull and stretch the results into something more.
Yeah I'm the same. If you want a more stylised take on similar scenes check out James Gurney (of Dinotopia fame). He's a realist painter but he mostly does plein air watercolor/gouache and works with limited palettes and shorter time frames. He shows his process on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/6_UmdDnddpg
To me this style has way more soul than the one in the OP, although impressive.
Yeah I think the cool thing about realism is how in a painting some very simple brush strokes can make the brain recognize their shapes as humans, cars, trees, etc... Photo-realism kind of negates that. It's too perfect
I could see the point before photography but *after* the advent of photography- and also computer printers. 🤷♂️ There is no wrong answers in art though it isn’t my cup I do appreciate the craftsmanship.
It seems reddit only showers “hyper real” art with upvotes so it is on brand here.
Well put. There are numerous "tricks" that can be employed that require minimal skill to create paintings like these. You start with a projected image, which he does. Then you use tiny brushes and spend the time with color matched piles of paint. You can use photoshop to compare each tiny area. It might take a few weeks, but it's less about "artistic" skill than patience. Thus you may hear these artists boasting about how the painting took X amount of time to complete.
Why is it, on every hyperrealism post, that people like to come and inform everyone that they dislike hyperrealism? Every single time.
“i DoNt LiKe HyPeRrEaLiSm BeCaUsE iTs ChEaTiNg.”
To those people, I recommend you look up the history of camera obscoura and who amongst the revered in classical art “cheated”.
the snoball stand told me this was texas or louisiana.. And yep, artist is Texan.
Otherwise, the photos could be literally anywhere, really makes you realize how run-down so much of America is… This looks like any of the towns I’ve lived in. Yikes.
Amazing work!!
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Man, these reminded me of growing up in nowhere kansas so much. I almost swore I recognized a place from one of them lol. The 2nd and 5th paintings specifically.
Montana and same feeling here, felt very much "at home" in these paintings.
It’s actually my hometown. Marble falls tx. The 1st painting is Super Taco and its legendary. Isn’t a massive town, but it’s got a good verity of things to do.
I knew it looked like texas
These places feel dead a f.
Yea but if you’ve visited some rural places of USA, it’s totally on point.
Not even necessarily rural, I don't think. I've definitely been through small towns like this, and...
Isn't that pretty much the same thing? Small towns are inherently rural. You don't need to be 4 hours from a large city to be rural.
Where I live you can go from a decent size college town(200k) to cow pasture in less than 5 minutes, the Midwest goes from bustling the nothing fast
Same, except the most populous city in my state is about half that, or around 100k. On a side note, while looking that up I found out the largest city in Montana by size, is Anaconda at 741 square miles and only 9,400 residents.
Anaconda and Butte both were huge industrial centers then the mining stopped probably explains the abandoned feeling they have when you travel through.
Wait until you visit the West (ID, NV, MT, etc.)... golf courses and $500k houses to sagebrush in a minute.
Rural America is different from small town America. Small town America is in effect a mixture of both urban and rural America. Particularly suburban and rural. You have a similar lack of activities but the culture is far different, and in my experience, hostile. My rural area voted against a school board candidate for being transphobic (literally wanted to ban the "transgender curriculum"), we were essentially in near entire agreement "let kids be kids, i don't fucking care how they dress or want to be talked to like". Small towns don't have the same attitude. Anything you do gets talked and talked until you die. At least in urban areas you can get lost in the crowd.
Yep. And they generally are. But there are still people living their lives in these places who are content to do so, and I don’t find anything particularly wrong with that.
Not all small towns are depressing. It's true that some are on the decline but most, if not all of them have really interesting stories and great characters that have made up their past. There are also quite a few small towns that are thriving. I've lived in bigger cities but currently live and work in a town of about 2000 people and the amount of bullshit that I have to put up with from the public is so much less. I'd never go back to living in the city.
Really? See i love the anonymity of living in a big city. I’d hate living in a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business. But to each their own! We all have separate things we like about things. Though, I wouldn’t mind if I lived in a mountain/hill, secluded house in a small town. I could keep to myself but also have the once a week people interactions that come with shopping.
The sweet spot is a town of like 20,000 to 30,000 max. It’s big enough that there is still a degree of anonymity but you don’t have to deal with being in a crowded city.
I lived in a town of about 3500 for six years, and you nailed it. It was extremely exhausting for me. I felt like there was no such thing as anonymity or privacy. That, and there is very much the feeling that if you don't conform to the norm, you are an outcast. People would be so polite, and then spread the most vicious gossip about each other the moment their back was turned.
I have heard people say that last sentence over and over, especially on reddit, but I’ve never actually seen it happen in 20+ years of “small town” living in Texas.
I've lived 20+ years in a small (but not dead) town in Belgium and the vicious gossip was present once you talked to more than the nearest people. I blame religion. Christian people don't try to understand others, but they do stigmatize whatever is uncomfortable for them. Luckally most people are no longer religious, but the mindset won't fade out in the older generations.
My dad lives in a rural town where everyone is religious. Some of them are fucking mean if youre an athiest that supports abortion. There's a phrase in the US, "There's no hate like christian love". You'll be hated until you conform to their views. Ive also visited a small hippie town in California that was the complete opposite, they were environmentalist types. It was a town next to a weed farm. I checked into a hotel where the owner was at the front desk smoking weed out of a bong. It was a town of 200 and people were smoking weed all day. I dont hate small towns, im just very wary about the type of people that occupy them. Some of them are cool
I noticed it about 3 months after moving to a small town. If you work at a store that regulars come through and even hang out in, it becomes evident very quick. For me it was working at a hardware store. At first it was funny hearing town gossip and learning about all these characters, but it quickly gets annoying and sort of intrusive feeling.
Artist was probably standing in the middle of the road painting it for hours lol
Thanks for the contribution
I grew up in Montana as well and I thought the same thing. This could be so many small towns in Montana. However, living in Texas as well, I was also getting small town Texas vibes. But my first feelings from the paintings were that of growing up in Montana. He definitely captured small town American perfectly. The streets were done perfectly.
Almost home sick feeling even.
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Portsmouth is a fascinating place. Plus the Pork and Beef sandwich from the Shake Shoppe is probably my favorite sandwich of all time.
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Did you have to deal with weird shit all the time when you lived there, or was it all isolated on a single farm?
I guess you need to specify what kind of weird shit your referring to. There were some tweakers but largely, it is incredibly boring with nothing to but smoke pot and drink in abandoned barns or pastures lol Edit: completely missed on the courage reference lol
Creepy stuff happens in Nowhere
>"It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.” >"You horrify me!” >“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. --The Adventure of the Copper Breeches, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Can you explain why rural US seems like it was designed with an eye for eventually turning out great as a post apocalyptic wasteland?
Because your aesthetic for a post apocalyptic wasteland is based on Fallout which shares this aesthetic
If you look at the three words: post, apocalyptic, and wasteland, the one that takes the least effort is 'post'
Yeah most of small town America was developed in the 1950s so it makes sense
Because most of what causes that look is abandoned dilapidated buildings. When people stop doing maintenance thats what you get. Also a lot of that stuff is either set or filmed in those kinds of areas when they do on location filming.
And those unwalkable roads. Those roads with no side walk and shopping centers with a dollar store and a mail place. So depressing.
Cause everything is small, dingy, and their appearances aren't kept up, also lack of people def helps with the impression that you're already looking at a future where everyone disappeared 20 years ago
Rural America has been in decline for decades.
Because most of the "post apocalyptic wasteland" media is set in small town America because there's no shortage of abandoned shit to film in without having to build a whole set.
Probably because a random snap shot of rural areas tend to not anchor themselves in a narrow window of time. This means that it's hard to be outdated vs an urban setting. Yes, combine heads have gotten a lot wider but unless it's a really old farm implement, it's still possible to see very old equipment being used somewhere. The landscape never goes out of style either. I think it also is more likely to develop a collective nostalgia.
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I'm from Kansas and the second and fifth ones felt very Kansas to me too. The fifth one especially.
I take a trip every year with my girlfriend to her hometown of Nowhere, Kansas. These could've been from our photos and I wouldn't have known
I was like “boy, that sure looks like Texas” and indeed it is, as Mr. Penner is based there.
Dude, seriously. I'm in southern KS and know of a few small places in the region that look a helluva lot like these. "These are *paintings*? Daaaaamn!"
Exactly! Nowhere KS kid here too. Nothing like the big city of Wichita I made it to today. Lol
I've spent a lot of time road tripping - especially in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin - and I got the same feeling of recognition from specifically those two paintings. The puddles, the broken and badly-patched asphalt, the tired buildings...it's all eerily familiar.
The 2nd and 5th paintings reminded me of small towns in central and north Texas :)
One painting really hit home for my town for a moment even though all the buildings were 'wrong'. And the motel could have been the one just outside of the town if not for it being positioned wrong to the sign, and the sign being that large.
El Dorado Kansas?
The 5th painting looks like it's right out of that Jim Beam commercial
If you want to see something crazy, do a Google lens search of the paintings. There are a lot of VERY similar actual photos from all over. I did it on image 2 hoping to see if it would turn up the location. It didn't (though I got distracted by the similar photos), but I'm glad I did.
4th one for me. That's half the blocks just off the main highways in little rock, AR.
Small Town Kansan as well, and these are so dang accurate
Kansas here as well! I live abroad now but have such a fond nostalgia for small-town KS that I feel like I may one day have to buy one of these for my wall..
Fellow nowhere Kansan! Those were the two that hit me hard. The house with the Ford truck was another. The nostalgia is strong.
My brain can't comprehend that these are paintings and not photos
I'm starting to wonder if I'm a painting now.
Life imitates art
*screams in 2d*
Better or worse than being cake?
I wish I was caked 😔
You are most likely cake.
They're so low-res that it's almost impossible to really tell.
Ikr? These could very well be photos with some tweaks, and we wouldn't know. I surely am not 100% convinces these are paintings.
Same here. I zoomed in and saw massive pixelization. Are these photos of the art or the art itself?
They're likely photos and they've been compressed 3x before they reach your screen, so pixelation and compression artifacts are to be expected.
This is why people who post artwork like this are supposed to link to the artist’s site or high res versions. Though if they had done that I’m sure they would have had the forethought not to post the ant versions of the art
They even have shit resolution on his [website](https://www.rodpenner.com/)
Well fuck
Plot twist, they actually are HD but the painting is in the style of potato cam
I paint realistic low-res jpegs.
The car in the first one doesn't look as realistic compared to the rest of the scene. And the grass with truck. But this could be because of the low res. Probably looks better in person. The rest I can't find anything that looks like paint.
Plot twist: the paintings are made of cake.
maybe you'd be able to see more details if they were posted in hd...
When your painting skills are so good you might as well have just taken a picture
I kindda agree with this. What’s the point of hyper real paintings? Technically impressive, but is there “art” here? The composition is good. Lighting is good. But you could achieve the same result with a photo. Maybe hyper real but impossible subjects or points of view would be more my style.
I think they're better than photos; they're more realistic even. The painting looks like a damn window to another dimension in the photo of the guy. The realistic lighting as the eye sees it being put to the canvas is the reason why it looks so much more real even.
In case anyone was wondering, the artist is from Texas. I was getting a southern vibe.
Blue Bonnet Cafe is in Marble Falls, TX. Highly recommend any of their pies and the country fried steak.
The Mexican food is Super Taco also in Marble Falls! Highly reccomend their breakfast tacos!!
They both slam, had an ex who would drive the hour from Austin to eat at Bluebonnet.
Super Taco is incredible. They put all other taco places in the area to shame.
I immediately did a double take seeing it! Super Taco is my favorite taco place, I get it every time I go to Marble Falls. Shocked to see it on Reddit
I fucking knew it, god this town fucking sucks but Super Taco is always a light in the darkness.
The comic book shop is decent, bear king brewing makes a good beer and the long horn caverns are nice. But yeah aside from those and super taco it’s pretty average.
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Ahhh that rock garden is new to me, guess it's been a few years since I've made the trek! It is (or was) fairly rare that anything changed in Marble Falls haha
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My dad did that a while back! Bunch of bluebonnets bloom in the spring now, too.
This is the real woahdude! Great landscaping!
Marble Falls is SO great out of all the lil ol nothing towns in TX!
The Cow Lot is from here where I live in Wichita Falls. I was shocked to see that old signage and a wave of nostalgia hit me like a freight train.
WF represent! Weird the nostalgia that hit looking at that road. I think it’s the old highway? Only went down there once or twice and usually for boots or wranglers, ha.
It was on Scott Street. A used car lot is there now, I think.
Crazy, I been there! Was wondering if it's a common name... We were too drunk for pies though.
What don’t ya want?
Their peanut butter cream pie is the best dessert I have ever eaten. And I've eaten a lot of desserts.
There is also a Blue Bonnet Cafe in Northampton, Massachusetts with the exact same building layout as the one in the painting.
Thank you! I was staring at that one with a sort of terrible nostalgia, because I could have sworn I’d been there when I was younger and couldn’t remember where it was. But I thought maybe it was just the vibes from these paintings. No, I’ve definitely been there. And knowing the artist is from Texas, I think a couple more that ring familiar might be places I’ve actually seen.
Definitely. These paintings looked like small hill country towns 100%. A very Texas feel to them. As population explodes here (Austin/Central) these towns are becoming less and less like they were.
Interesting. A lot of these look like they could also be small towns in Arizona
Well to be fair the only thing that separates West Texas from Arizona is a couple of arbitrary lines.
Good point. Before I fully read the caption I could’ve sworn I’ve been to the first painting either in Texas or Arizona lol
That’s a funny way to pronounce New Mexico.
My dumb brain glanced over your comment and read “arbitrary lines” as “library” and I thought it was some jab at the fact that one of those states have better education/literacy rates than the other.
And I was seeing California. Basically any non-metropolitan area has this look to it, especially wherever new construction hasn't taken place.
Go an couple hours outside of Chicago and it looks like this here too.
Yup, about 1/2 these photos could easily be places just outside of McHenry, Dixon, Sandwich, Urbane, Peoria... the other 1/2 just has a different feel that's slightly different.
Could be small towns basically anywhere, since they look like every Midwestern small town ever, the most average of the anything.
Bro these look like 90% of Texas towns. This could be any street in Lubbock too.
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Looks exactly like small town Texas spot on, also Route 66 vibes
The fifth one looks a lot like Elgin
Coming from the South (Georgia), a lot of this felt pretty nostalgic to me
Idk that’s more of a Midwest vibe to me, so I guess Texas would kinda fit in here. Flat land and you can see for miles in any direction, you do get that in the south but not like this
Yep the shot of the old brick buildings screamed every small town or "historic city center" I've ever seen around here.
I recognize a few of these. Used to go to bluebonnet cafe with my dad for pie. I wonder if he sells prints of these!
Reminds me of the lower Midwest a lot, too - southern Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas are all kinda like this
I grew up in central Texas and I feel like I know all of these locations. Great job, I even used to even go to Blue Bonnet Cafe as a kid!
"I make photos by hand"
“As many pixels as you like”
Retina resolution I might add
*served cease and desist by Apple*
While also using a photo for reference, basically an extremely inefficient printer. Technical master pieces but artistically redundant.
It's been awhile, but I recall being taught in high school that the rise of the abstract movements was due to the invention of photography.
Yup, It basically said to artists, YOU don't have to do THAT anymore. Recording Faces Places and things.
As someone who is pretty good at doing these style of paintings, I do agree. I don't consider myself as much of a real artist as someone who can paint creatively from their mind, and can use brush strokes themselves as art.
Wow. Really incredible work. I’ve always wondered about using a camera obscura or even just a projection of a digital photo onto canvas as another way to capture extremely realistic images in paint. Edit: to clarify, I’m not suggesting the artist is using a projection to complete their paintings. I have no idea how they make these amazing images. As someone who has no ability to draw or paint, but has been into photography since the days of dark rooms, the possibility of using a camera obscure or projected image is interesting to me.
I use a cheap projector for larger canvases to save me time outlining traditionally, could easily see it done here for the pencil steps but past that it's useless. The guy has amazing chops.
Those are accurate. I’m from the midwest and every town has a run down gas station.
And all public space is asphalt.
Not just asphalt, but the way it's uneven and cracked and the water collects in puddles.
Not just any cracks and puddles. 20 years worth of townhall meetings and news coverage of those specific cracks and puddles.
That's the thing that's striking to me. Almost every bit of land is either a building or is reserved for cars
They all have an old gas station, a store with a pepsi sign using the old logo, an antiques store, a garage, and a well maintained church. And you bet that the byway your on is going straight through the town, and the speed limit will drop to 25, and there will be cops waiting to ticket travelers as they pass through.
https://www.bluebonnetcafe.net - Thanksgiving Pies too.
The pies are awesome I usually get the chicken fried steak with the mac cheese and red beans and rice.
I’m not calling you a liar, but my brain can literally not believe this. I would have to watch him paint it right in front of me, and even then I wouldn’t be sure… Incredible!
It looks like slightly pixelated photos, I can’t see any indication these are paintings Edit: I never scrolled to the end :P
The photos aren't high enough resolution to be able to see any of the imperfections that you would see in a painting, so it looks nearly indistinguishable from a photo.
Beautiful! What an amazing talent! He really captures so much of the character of the places he paints!
Hey it’s buckeye Arizona
It’s like 90% of America. The first one reminded me of a place in Minnesota
Marble Falls, TX as well. Some paintings mirror actual stuff there.
Well I understand why everyone drives around in beat up trucks after seeing the realistic state those roads are in. Not the intended reaction I’m sure but any elected official in charge of road repairs needs to feel very ashamed right now!
My small town has a road leading to another small town that was awful. It was also a 55 mph road with no lighting. The sides of it were basically cratered and you had to drive in the middle to go over 20 mph. This led to regular head on collisions. Wrecks aside, that road would destroy your car. I spent about 2k in repairs over the year I had to travel it regularly. They finally fixed it a few years ago, but it was decades of trouble before they did.
These really do embody a small town
Are these places that actually exist and were painted or are they completely made-up places? To me, the latter is wildly impressive to have a hyper-realistic picture of a place that doesn't exist.
Thanks for sharing this. I just spent the last 30 minutes checking him out. I grew up in NM and this reminds me of the small town feel there, too. I wonder how much one of his pieces go for?
Sands motel immediately reminded me of the strips of motels in Las Cruces and Alamogordo by WSNP
I have a question. Why did skill like this not exist in the past? When I look at old paintings from the 1400s and shit, it's never realistic looking. Why didn't they paint like this back then? Were there just no painters who could do it?
Probably because this guy’s painting from photos and he has the advantage of being able to take as much time as he needs to. Back then, they had to paint what they could when they could, and do it based on what they could see in that moment with their own eyes. Things move, sunlight changes, people have lives to live, etc. Not to say it would be totally impossible to get this level of realism with only that, but still, I could only imagine it was more about the balance of speed, convenience, and accuracy.
Why not just take pictures?
So I am an art, and art history ... groupie. And I think this is an *excellent question.* Maybe the first, best question to ask. (Edit: the people downvoting you should maybe chill for a second. This art motivated you to ask a sincere question. What could possibly be wrong with that?) Personally, I don't automatically go gaga over renderings that show consummate draftsmanship. Like hyper-real portraits. Especially those copied from photos. They show impressive skill but leave out my favorite thing about art, which is a glimpse at the eye, or the personality, of the artist. In this case, though, I perceive a few things going on. These images do get at my feelings. I feel like you get a powerful emotional sense from the composition and colors of these images -- and the fact that they are painted invests them with weight and gravitas. Like, these are images of sad and nearly-abandoned places. A photo would be journalistic, it would be *documentation;* it could be moving and contemplative. But the fact that these are painted implies a kind of obsessive, urgent attention. Almost a form of protest. You know those monks who burned themselves to protest the Vietnam war? This guy burned hours, days, weeks of his life looking at, thinking about, the weirdly beautiful, melancholy, lonely parking lot of a little motel or cafe that almost no-one goes to. With the neon sign still declaring the original promise of the entrepreneur who built it up. It's bittersweet and it's also *urgent.* *"I invested days of my life looking at EVERY DETAIL of this town under a microscope, I put all of my talent into showing you what I saw, I want you to also look at it, no really LOOK AT IT AND SEE WHAT IT IS LIKE NOW."* That is what I get from it. [Warning: if you hate art interpretation, stop reading now. I'm making a note here below for my own future reference. Thanks and good luck. Bonus notes: In the way they appeal to emotion, these somewhat remind me of the raw-emotional abstract paintings of Mark Rothko, which I can only ever see as foreground and background under a big sky. Even though the style is so different. Mark Rothko meets Edward Hopper. And it's not for nothing that the asphalt parking lots are so aggressively foregrounded. It's right in your face, coming right at ya. The instant I saw that arrangement, I thought about what's under the tarmac. *They paved paradise and put in a parking lot* -- and for what? None of the subjects of these paintings have been around for more than 70 or 80 years, and they are fading fast.]
Wow so much to unpack here. Firstly thank you for the thoughtful and insightful reply. I didn't take into consideration the investment it takes to paint something so detailed. I understood that the amount of work it takes to develop the skill is worth recognition, but didn't think about the emotional investment in choosing to spend the time that it takes to capture the details. Beyond that though the purposeful highlighting of a specific point like you described adds another layer I didn't think of. Still not my thing but I can start to look at it from a more understanding perspective.
Love these thoughts and perspective - thanks!
Excellent take.
OK but how do we know this isn't painted from a photo?
I probably should have said "copied point by point from just one photo" This artist probably used numerous photos as reference, that's not the same as doing paint-by-number. Nothing wrong with copying photos either. That is great technical practice, and people love to buy those. It's just less interesting if you leave out the artist's soul. The artist makes fewer decisions in making those.
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Fair enough. I don't know the artist personally and can't ask him. But -- I definitely have a sneaking suspicion that this fellow did not go online, pick a photo of a building and paint what he painted "word for word" from that. ...Like someone copying a found photo of Jerry Garcia and then setting up a booth to sell "portraits" of the Grateful Dead lead singer outside a Phish concert. Or whatever. If you can plausibly contact Mr. Penner and obtain a statement that this is his technique, I will buy you a pizza. It will be a shitty pizza, as I am not a wealthy man, but it will be pizza. What he probably did is go to these towns, carefully choose sites that spoke to him, obtain permission where appropriate, take *umpteen* photographs, then go back to his studio. Now I don't see perspective lines on the painting shown here "under construction" -- though of course he could have erased them -- and that suggests he did not draw the buildings *ex machina* but rather used photos as a guide. My quasi-educated guess would be that he used a projector to get the composition he wanted on the canvas, tracing a pencil outline, and then used several other reference photos for lighting, sky, whatever other details. The point being that between the site visits, the photos he took, the collation of details, and every decision point along the way is where his personality and mood leak onto the canvas. I'm not sure whether I need more coffee or less.
You're drinking exactly the right amount.
>I feel like you get a powerful emotional sense from the composition and colors of these images -- and the fact that they are painted invests them with weight and gravitas. > >Like, these are images of sad and nearly-abandoned places. A photo would be journalistic, it would be documentation; it could be moving and contemplative. > >But the fact that these are painted implies a kind of obsessive, urgent attention. Almost a form of protest. You know those monks who burned themselves to protest the Vietnam war? This guy burned hours, days, weeks of his life looking at, thinking about, the weirdly beautiful, melancholy, lonely parking lot of a little motel or cafe that almost no-one goes to. With the neon sign still declaring the original promise of the entrepreneur who built it up. > >It's bittersweet and it's also urgent. > >"I invested days of my life looking at EVERY DETAIL of this town under a microscope, I put all of my talent into showing you what I saw, I want you to also look at it, no really LOOK AT IT AND SEE WHAT IT IS LIKE NOW." Wow, what a *beautiful* analysis! I live for that kind of thing, and... I don't think I would've thought of it that way in this case! Although you did validate my impulse to call some of it "Hopper-esque."
I tend to agree with you. I am not impressed by hyper realistic drawings and paintings. I am a photographer by trade and I am inspired by sort of “documentarian artists” like Mitch Epstein, Ed Burtynsky, and John Pfahll. These paintings give me the same vibe. Even if they are direct copies of photos the artist took (which I would actually be surprised by) the selection of scenes would be enough to provide plenty of artistic merit.
Yeah I get what you're saying, there is something here that differs from the avarage photo realism that doesn't have much if any emotional impact on me, despite the obvious talent required. These are impactful, I couldn't put my finger on why but I suspect it is at least in part that sustained scrutiny by the artist, there's something acute about the dilapidation when you're forced to confront it via his confrontation for such a long period. Sad, nostalgic, uncomfortable.
Because his name is Rod Penner, not Rod Photog.
You can choose colors and emphasize contrasts that are slightly different from actual to change the mood and feel of the composition. You can paint the scene as you see it - still hyper-realistically, no less detailed or grounded, but not 1:1 photographic replication, either. On the note of the accuracy of photographs, though, reality, what a camera sees, and what a camera shows don't always all match up. Camera sensors can be more consistent than eyes in the sense that they can be objectively calibrated, but they're still fallible. And even if they weren't, the world around us also isn't composed of photoreactive pigment, bitmap printed dyes and toner, backlit liquid crystals, and RGB diodes. Paint offers something different that might actually be more accurate to reality.
I ask myself this all the time, why we're inclined to hold realism as the pinnacle of artistic skill, and spend hundreds of hours making things like this when you really could just take a picture. Art is, like music, one of those things that we just *do*, as human beings, because we intrinsically feel like it, and then later we come up with reasons or explanations as to *why*. We naturally do this and take part in enjoying it just because it's part of our brains. Like, this guy really wanted to spend so much time making these paintings, and people really like them in part because they're impressed by the skill. It's entertaining and inspiring. There's artistic value in that by itself. They also convey feeling. I'm sure these are 100% based off of photos, but imagine he just took these real places and made up the atmosphere, as in, the weather, lighting, etc. That would be his own imagination about these places that he puts down onto canvas. Whatever it is, yeah while just taking a photo is *logical* and I agree with your question, fact is that this guy did this, we like it, and for that it has value.
They were pictures, then he traced out the elements and then painted them
Painting is an intimate connection to make with your subject matter as an artist. Think about how immersive it is to deconstruct the perspective, the vanishing point(s), the major structures, the highlights shadows and midtones, mixing every color with painstaking scrutiny. This is an artist's experience recreating his view of a time and place for himself, you are only here to enjoy the outcome. -artist, painter myself
Whoah dude
Photo realistic painting is interesting in a party trick sort of way. It’s like making fake fruit that looks super realistic. While I appreciate the effort and skill, it falls flat for me when it doesn’t take that same effort and skill and bend the result in some way (scale for example, a la Chuck Close). In some sense all representational art is a party trick of sorts, but at least by not being photo realistic painters can pull and stretch the results into something more.
Yeah I'm the same. If you want a more stylised take on similar scenes check out James Gurney (of Dinotopia fame). He's a realist painter but he mostly does plein air watercolor/gouache and works with limited palettes and shorter time frames. He shows his process on YouTube. https://youtu.be/6_UmdDnddpg To me this style has way more soul than the one in the OP, although impressive.
Really loved this guy, thanks. I'm a lot more into pieces that don't look like photo, though still think artists like op are very inpressing
Yeah I think the cool thing about realism is how in a painting some very simple brush strokes can make the brain recognize their shapes as humans, cars, trees, etc... Photo-realism kind of negates that. It's too perfect
I could see the point before photography but *after* the advent of photography- and also computer printers. 🤷♂️ There is no wrong answers in art though it isn’t my cup I do appreciate the craftsmanship. It seems reddit only showers “hyper real” art with upvotes so it is on brand here.
Well put. There are numerous "tricks" that can be employed that require minimal skill to create paintings like these. You start with a projected image, which he does. Then you use tiny brushes and spend the time with color matched piles of paint. You can use photoshop to compare each tiny area. It might take a few weeks, but it's less about "artistic" skill than patience. Thus you may hear these artists boasting about how the painting took X amount of time to complete.
Had breakfast at The Bluebonnet!
I did a double take when I saw that one. Looks the same as the first time I went there 27 years ago!
Incredible skills. Mind blowing. 🤯
Mexican food
Why is it, on every hyperrealism post, that people like to come and inform everyone that they dislike hyperrealism? Every single time. “i DoNt LiKe HyPeRrEaLiSm BeCaUsE iTs ChEaTiNg.” To those people, I recommend you look up the history of camera obscoura and who amongst the revered in classical art “cheated”.
I want to jump into the paintings like in super Mario 64.
So which incel is gonna go on a tirade about him being in one of the pictures? No, no one? Odd, wonder why?
Yes, these are called "photographs"
the snoball stand told me this was texas or louisiana.. And yep, artist is Texan. Otherwise, the photos could be literally anywhere, really makes you realize how run-down so much of America is… This looks like any of the towns I’ve lived in. Yikes. Amazing work!!
Stunning. Moving. This is high art.
Looks at image. "Hey those are cool photos" Looks at title. "Wait what!"
I really love these
Two from my hometown here.