Gary Faigin - Smoke and Mirrors

April 4 - 27, 2024
Reception: First Thursday, April 4, 6-8 PM
Open House: Saturday, April 6, 2-4 PM
Artist Talk: Saturday, April 13 at 1 PM

In Smoke and Mirrors, Pacific Northwest artist Gary Faigin, continues his series of allegorical paintings using trains as the central character.  At times sinister, heroic, or completely incongruous, Faigin’s trains dominate their surroundings, whether it be urban, pastoral, or the High Arctic.  Steam engines puff across the frozen ocean or fragile ice bridges, inescapably reminding us of the role of industrial civilization in the increasing threat to such landscapes.  A black engine racing like the Batmobile emerges from a tunnel, it’s energy and drama tempered by the ominous red smoke belching from its stack.  An approaching train catches a lone figure in its beam, while strange skyscrapers of the future loom in the distance. 

Faigin’s paintings use the seduction of chiaroscuro and heightened color to engage us in his troubling narratives; beauty coexisting with the mechanical beast calling out a unwelcome future. 

Click here to view Gary Faigin’s Artist Talk - Why Trains?
Click here to view a virtual tour of Gary Faigin’s exhibition Smoke and Mirrors
Click here to view other available works by Gary Faigin
Click here to view Elegy for a Mechanical Age, an animated musical slideshow