Rod Penner San Saba Butane, 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 6 x 6 inches, 15.2 x 15.2 cm Congrats to @rodpenner whose show opens tonight at @ameringer.mcenery.yohe Here is the opening of the catalog essay I wrote for Rod's Show: "Anyone who has stood in front of one of Rod Penner’s paintings of small-town Texas has likely wondered how he manages to endow them with such a powerful air of haunted clarity. Perhaps the best explanation of the dreamlike intensity that Penner can conjure up is that he is motivated by a profound and genuine sense of American culture and the opportunities that it has offered him. Penner’s vignettes of Texas towns celebrate American virtues, including grit, endurance, and candor. He is a reverent painter who is able to suggest determination and optimism as counterforces to a certain loneliness, even melancholy." #rodpenner #johnseed #texas #realism #newyorkcity #ameringermceneryyohe