"Erie (Great Lakes)" by Patrick Fitzgerald

This abstract work by Chicago artist Patrick Fitzgerald belongs to a series of “track paintings” that materialize the imagined tracks navigated by his miniature soap-box car sculptures. Inspired by slot-car racetracks, each painting depicts a meandering, yet cyclical path that twists and turns upon itself in an endless loop. Isolated from time and place, the painting achieves a sense of timelessness and draws a through line linking the past, the present, and the future.

Entitled "Erie," this track painting is one of five compositions inspired by the Great Lakes. Like all of Fitzgerald's works, the paintings are deeply responsive to his surroundings and encapsulate the unique industrial histories and geologic wonders of the American midwest. Fitzgerald describes his Great Lakes series as "a contemplation of these wondrous bodies of water that have impressed and mystified me beyond words since childhood. My desire within each work is to create the timeless quality of a relic imbued with nostalgia and emotive power."

The focal point of "Erie" is a meandering loop of blue and red stripes, elevated above the surface of the work as a three-dimensional track. The track is brushed with thick paints of aging colors and raised upon a more monochromatic, flat track of rusted color and texture. The wandering lines are backed by corrugated cardboard, painted white with deliberately wrinkled texture to appear as aging industrial siding. Built from found materials collected over the years, the multi-media work explores the sculptural effects of layered media and the challenges of integrating found "bits" with storied lives of their own.

Oil on shaped cardboard, wood dowels and mixed media. Mounted on wood panel in distressed frame.