Ann Duffy - Cityscapes

Vermillion is proud to present New Cityscapes by local painter Ann Duffy. Duffy paints seemingly straightforward scenes that are Hyperrealist snapshots in time often with utilitarian cars, long stretches of empty roadway, glimpses of iconographic buildings, or humorously altered roadway signage as the theme.

Regina Hackett says, “… Ann Duffy paints light…She's a realist who orchestrates each scene as if it were a modest piece of chamber music. In a world full of losses, her light can still take your breath away.”

Her subtle, pictorial elements and unusual sense of place gives a recognizable subject like a truck driving down Airport way in Georgetown an eerie stillness, capturing motion and shaping dark outlines at dusk. With just a sliver of an “S” on an historical neon sign as reference, anyone who has been at that exact location will find it undeniably familiar, especially given that the perspective is unadulterated and natural to the eye and about as unremarkable as glancing out the window. But then the satisfaction of nostalgia seeps in and one is left to wonder among other things, whether that place still exists. It does.