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Heroic perspectives of the clty.ainting in his signarure.expressionist stvle. FrancisLivingston completes large.

close-up images ol br-rildings. sroretionrs.fire escapes and roofiops found amongstthe vernacular architecrure oi \es- \orkCiry's SoHo.

"People reallr- har-e been enior-ingmy largc rrork. and rhc imrg.rr is rcontinuarion of rhe SoHo Series I har-e

been doing. Bur ri-irh the paintinqs

in mY upcoming exhibition I'mconce nrrating on rhings more up close,"

sats Livingston. "Facades of buiidings,rooftc.p shors-up hieh, Iooking down-sma11 qroupinqs of buildings, maybe justa tbcus on nr'o specif-ic buildings next toeach other insread oi a ri'ho1e street. Thatsort oi rhinq."

And, u'hile Liringston has alrvays

shied ar,var. fiom including figures in his

rvork, he is still someu'har inf'luenced bv

key figurative painters."I've always been interested in Bav

Are a Expressionism like RichardDiebenkorn," says Livingston. "I love the

way he put together shapes and colors-it's like here 's a rectangle, here's a

triangle, here's a shadow. And, rvharI like about these city scenes is that it'sendless, you move ten feet, look theother way and you have an entirelr.different painting."

"l lived for a long time in San

Francisco and Marin county in thecit1,." says Livingston. 'And when I was

there, I couldnt care 1ess. I didnt wanr ropaint buildings but did beach andboardwalk scenes. It wasnt until I movedaway that I really started to concenrrareon these ciry scenes."

But ever since, it has been almost theonly thing he has been able to think about.

"My interest gets renewed ail thetime, everyday," says Livingston. "You

have a whoie different thing going ondepending on the time of day, the effects

of that and the light, the weatherconditions. It's all about shapes andwhen you stand back you want thepainting to retain its solidity."

" Buildings have a massiveness ro

them," says Livingston. "They are nortotally flat so you get many angles,shapes and that lends perfectly to m,v

way of painting. I'm not a detail painter.instead, I choose to lay on color, andthen another color until I get it right."

Besides the color, the buildings also

allow Livingston to experiment rvithanother, equally important aspect of his

paintings."Balance, to me it's all about

balance," says Livingston. "If I have a

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water tower on the left, I need to klorvhow you balance that with one in the

center. Does it feel right in terms ofcolor and feeling? Some images are also

more expansive, more focused and I'11 do

more of a spotlight effect on several

buildings and have them in focus withintense color and light and more texture

so you have the feeling of an almost

sculptural effect."Livingston has seen texture become

increasingly important in these new

paintings as well."The brushstrokes are get ting

progressivelr'thicker and thicker and the

paint itself is becoming more and more

important," savs Livingston. "It's notrealiy that different, just expanding."

Besides these elements of the works,

Livingston's collectors have always been

drawn to his use of color."It's really interesting across the

board," says Livingston. "People refer to

the work as colorful but I use color more

as an accent. I enjoy using muted colors

Iike grays and less pure color. There is a lot

of color but it's not really bright as I'mtrying to capture a specific mood." o

For a direct linb to theexhibiting gallery go to

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Mtdium: r'"''t8i0g-0,',,'i

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