September 17th, 2011
"ON BELMONT"
Belmont Avenue is the gateway to Chicago's Lakeview East neighborhood. In Lakeview you can find restaurants serving just about any kind of food you want. It is the home of a number of cabarets and professional/community theaters. It hosts the Chicago Cubs at historic Wrigley Field. And Lakeview has been recognized by the city as a hub of Chicago's gay night life.
As exciting as all of this is, in this painting is wanted to capture time of the day as much as the actual scene of the Belmont El (elevated train) stop. I did not want a lot of energy as in some of my other paintings. After all it’s close of the day. It's evening. It's time to unwind.
Nonetheless, I still wanted the scene to be clearly recognizable to someone familiar with that portion of Belmont Ave. "On Belmont" was recently to a gentleman who lives in the area who declared “I have to have it! It’s my neighborhood. I travel this street every day."
I think the thing that inspired me most about painting this scene were the silhouettes of the passengers waiting for the next train against the subtle colors of the setting sun.
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