Although Goings uses the photograph as a source of reference, his paintings are often highly personalized and interpretive. An example of a photograph that Goings would have used as a basis for one of his photorealistic paintings. We have selected two paintings by Ralph Goings that capture the transitions throughout his career.
The first painting is one of his earliest, painted in , and is the epitome of his style at this time. The second painting is from after his move to New York as he began to paint figures. The upper half of the painting is mostly an expansive hazy blue sky that fades towards the horizon. A parked white car, peaking out from behind the building, provides a counterpoint to the pickup truck.
Although these two cars hint at possible people, they are not visible in the composition. Unlike the pop art movement of the time, which critiqued and paid homage to American pop culture, Goings preferred to represent everyday objects with an importance that lacked social commentary.
Goings completed this painting after he moved to New York in This painting reflects the shift in his style and subject. The zig-zagging of black and white tiles below the shiny chrome countertop converge on the two waitresses seated at the bar.
The two women are wearing bright white uniforms and relaxing either before the day starts or once it has ended. One of the waitresses seated on the backless and chrome-rimed stools is clasping a cigarette between her fingers, while a rag is draped over the shoulder of the other. Although the painting depicts figures and is one of his first to do so, they are not central to the piece. When he began to include figures in his paintings, many of them were of the working class. The reverence for working-class people, like himself, is clear in this painting.
The shiny metal surfaces of the trailer reflect its surroundings, although the reflections are soft and indistinct. These reflections, which change depending on the texture and terrain of a given surface, gave Goings the opportunity to create paintings that combined jaw-dropping, hyper-realistic representations of objects and to embed in them an enormous variety of abstract forms that resulted from the interplay of light, shadow, and colors on surfaces.
In the distance, snow-capped mountains line the horizon; in a somewhat nondescript middle ground, telephone poles create a dividing line between wilderness and the civilization of the comfortable trailer. The cool palette and snowy mountain range suggest the desert of the American Southwest in wintertime, rugged conditions contrasting with the protective, interior warmth of the roving home-away-from-home.
The Airstream trailer symbolizes a kind of escapism in which even the less well-to-do could indulge. Recreational camping had, by the time Goings painted this piece, become an American pastime. It provided even the working class with the possibility of leaving behind for a weekend or a summer family vacation the rigors of daily life. The reflective chrome countertop and the sharp zigzagging of the black-and-white tiles create a dramatic diagonal that, almost arrow-like, draws attention to the two waitresses for which this piece was titled.
Relaxing on the backless bar stools, the women, dressed in stark white uniforms, are either relaxing after a shift or perhaps getting ready for the day. One holds a cigarette while the other sits with a rag draped across her shoulder. Light streams in from windows that extend beyond the painted scene and illuminate the surfaces of the diner's interior. The oft-repeated subject of American diners is rooted in Goings' personal travels and, aesthetically, in his fascination with light and the visual malleability of objects and surfaces by light.
His works occasionally feature human figures as with the two waitresses in this piece. Those who do populate his figural works - most often, denizens of diners and the people who attend to their needs - are members of the American working class. For every Goings painting that hints at human connections via seemingly recently parked vehicles, homes, and camping trailers with closed doors and curtains, there are images such as this one in which the viewer is invited to enter the interiors and join their human occupants.
Goings' respect bordering on reverence of the American working class is reflected in his depiction of these two waitresses: their crisp, white uniforms allude to archetypal associations with benevolence and quiet fastidiousness. The works are less sentimental than respectful snapshots of a way of life that may not seem worthy of memorializing in painting. In Shanna's Pickup , Goings represents the bed of a white work truck, against the backdrop of a wide dirt road, surrounded by farmland, under a crisp blue sky.
The exposed truck bed is battered and rusty, and the lack of a tailgate reveals an array of objects: loose chains, buckets, a fuel tank and other items related to manual labor-based work.
There are fresh tire tracks in the foreground of the painting, indicating that the truck might have recently been in motion and is parked only briefly. Goings' keen attention to the light source lends this ordinary, utilitarian vehicle a kind of monumentality.
The title indicates that there's an owner of this vehicle: Shanna, the wife of the artist. The truck seems to stand in as a substitute for her, the person who has just parked her vehicle, including leaving fresh tracks as evidence of her recent presence in the picture frame.
The piece is, in some ways, a symbolic portrait of the invisible Shanna, just as other images by Goings are absent of people but the objects that are features of their daily lives are testaments to their existence just beyond view. Goings' elevation of an object to a more complex status - as a portrait of a specific person and also as a symbol of the American working class - is not dissimilar to the strategy of Pop artists like Oldenburg or Warhol, who explored and critiqued American culture through the lens of mass production and consumption.
The objects in the truck become attributes of the overall character of its owner but, in the case of Goings' work, such images are tributes rather than critiques. This vertically-oriented piece features ordinary, restaurant-style, glass salt and pepper shakers unevenly aligned in front of a shiny, metal napkin holder, with a white paper napkin exposed in the front.
In addition to his focus on the various effects of light on reflective surfaces and the way light penetrates transparent objects, Goings' mania for detail prompted him to describe even the granular quality of the salt and pepper inside of the glass shakers with a kind of reverence.
Everything is illuminated to the minutest detail; nothing is inconsequential. One of the most familiar subjects of photorealist painters like Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Chuck Close and, of course, Goings, was that of metal reflecting light and the abstract forms created in the process. Participating sellers and buyers may be required to register on the site, may select a username and password, and must agree to be bound by these terms.
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Ralph Goings initially attempted to paint subject matter that was similar to what he had focused on in California. Ralph Goings visited fast food restaurants and parking lots, looking for scenes or trucks that might give him inspiration.
Ralph Goings soon realized that not only were the vehicles and buildings vastly different in New York, the entire environment created a different perspective in his photographs. The energy he had seen in the California environment did not translate to his new location, and Ralph Goings found that in the different lighting and aesthetic of New York he was no longer inspired by the same subject matter. Ralph Goings began exploring diners in upstate New York, observing the people and interactions that went on there.
Ralph Goings became inspired by the people there and found them to be a crucial component to these locations, versus the impersonal patrons of the fast food restaurants he had seen in California. This new stage of work has a softer, more private feel to the paintings. Ralph Goings had captured the sharp, modern lines of the scenes in California, and now he was attempting to depict the friendly, sluggish life that existed in the diners on the east coast.
Always being sure to ask permission of the restaurant owner and the patrons, Ralph Goings would then take his time before photographing a subject to ensure that they had slipped back into their natural state.
The people in his paintings do not present strong emotion or action as they often seem to be caught in a state of private daydreaming. Although the figures appear to be depicted at their most insignificant moments, it is difficult not to create a narrative that goes along with each figure.
Ralph Goings realized this would be a natural tendency for any audience, but he did not choose to paint the figures to tell a story or anecdote. The purpose of Ralph Goings in his paintings is to stress the elegance of the figure or object in space, along with all the details that weave amongst each other to make up the visual scene.
Ralph Goings did not want to tamper with a scene he found beautiful by investigating the meaning behind it, because to do so would alter the organic appeal to his snapshots of reality. Ralph Goings is also well known for the still lifes he painted from the various diners he visited on the east coast. Upon noticing that there was a staple collection of items that each diner chose to nestle on its counter, Ralph Goings began taking close up photos of the various countertops. Ralph Goings felt a connection to how an employee from each diner had their own way of composing the condiments and napkins.
Initially painting the still lifes with watercolor, then moving onto oil, these works of art all maintain the sharp focus on the objects set against the slightly blurred background details of the restaurant. The still lifes have a personal feeling because the viewpoint is often as if we are sitting at the counter ourselves surveying our own cup of coffee.
Ralph Goings also experimented with highly focused still lifes, in which we see an up close version of a ketchup bottle or saltshaker that mainly focuses on the abstraction and light hitting the object.
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