The five Readers paintings bring together urban experiences that were documented when visiting New York City and Boston in 2009. While crowded spaces are perhaps the dominant part of urban living, reading is a solitary pursuit, in shared space. I observed a lot of people reading.

Another aspect of urban experience is hearing conversations buzzing around in a cacophony of different languages. A translation of the line “It is written” appears in each painting in one of these languages: Norwegian, Estonian, Czech, Arabic, or Serbian.

The more directly visual factors in urban settings and these paintings, the bits of paper left when posters are pulled off surfaces and graffiti, both often illegal artistic efforts, are represented here in mixed media i.e. paper and staples and spray paint. It was way harder to control a spray can than I imagined it would be.

Rhonda Harder Epp
2010