No Rust.

I work with painter Steve Flanagan, and a couple weeks ago we went up to say goodbye to the apartment and studio he's lived in for nearly 20 years. The whiskey was good, but it was also fun to see some of Flanagan's older work that he was getting ready to transport. I'm most familiar with his renderings of rust, decay, and dead machines, so it was cool to see some of his old abstracts.



Looking back at the photos I took made me realize that there's something very Hangar 18, Area 51 about these paintings. It's not that they actually make me think of captured aliens and UFOs. It's that they're infused with an insecurity and paranoia that wavers between dread and light. The fear of not knowing the other, or possibly the fear that we do.