Roads And Highways example essay topic

Because roads, streets, highways, boulevards, and freeways are an everyday part of our life, they understandably are part of our art. In the foreground or the background, they secure our art to reality, serve as symbols, or twist and turn in ways never dreamed by the imagination. Raymond Neher used roads and highways as his subject in many of his paintings. He began painting for his own benefit, because he "Enjoyed putting brush to canvas". Raymond George Neher was born in Orange, New Jersey on September 14, 1943; he was the only child to Rudolph Neher and Evelyn Posadzki. Neher was awarded his Bachelor of Architecture form the Carnegie Mellon University and his Masters from the Columbia University.

He began his career as an architect in New York City. In 1973 he transferred to San Francisco, California, where he worked on the Master Plan for a New Community in Ahwaz, Iran. He was well known and appreciated for his work in historical restorations and adaptive reuse. His projects included work on art and science museums, hotels and spas, hospital and medical school, as well as construction administration. As an artist his career spanned nearly 40 years.

Neher worked mostly in acrylic paint on canvas. His works have been shown in exhibitions all across the United States of America and are in private collections throughout the United States, as well as Amsterdam, Rome and Santorini, Greece. Neher joined the Fort Mason Printmakers in the early 1980's and created etchings and mono prints that often complemented his canvas work. Many of his subjects sprang from his travels around California's Central Valley Interstate 5 highway. His road scapes paintings he created were on photo quality.

The images he creates, whether it is a highway, a bridge or a suburban street, are always free of pollution, road kill and litter. The paintings are full of colour which makes the painting a bit surreal, as if the image is just too good to be true. All his road scapes are from the perspective a person in a vehicle on the road, making the viewer feel more engaged with the painting, as if they are actually there. The painting above is called Mount Hood Highway. Neher has used such contrasting colours to layer the painting. His use of straight lines and angles on the road, pine trees and the snow covered mountain in the background brake up the painting causing the painting to be easier to take in by the viewer.

The curved lines of the trees and shrubs, underneath the pine trees, the hills in the backdrop and the clouds in the sky, soften the image. The painting itself shows the difference between nature and the environment, and the man-made creation of the highway. The sign on the side of the highway is a warning of the nature that is all around, declaring that nature has no right to be on the highway. When asked why he used roads and highways as a subject for his art Neher replied, "I want to paint something you can see everyday and show it in a new light". Neher choose to leave the litter and pollution seen on roads and highways out of his paintings to make the viewer see the subject differently, to forget all the bad things associated with highways and roads and just see the beauty of the environment surrounding our roads. Raymond Neher passed away peacefully at his home in March 15th 2004 after a three year battle with cancer.

Bibliography

Unknown Author. (2003) A riki Art Online Gallery [Internet] California: Arikiart Inc.
Available from web M. (2002) Mark Harden's Archive [Internet] Available from web.