Doubled Spaceships 1995

John Conrad Berkey made "Doubled Spaceships" with paint and a real knack for making metal look convincing. Berkey’s vision feels rooted in the tradition of American illustration, but he's also got something of that European love for process in his work. Looking at the surface, the paint is worked wet-into-wet. The strokes are thick and confident, and he's not afraid to let the underpainting peek through, giving it a sense of depth and luminosity. The forms aren't tightly defined, they're suggested with these broad, gestural strokes. There's one mark in particular, the flame exhaust on the smaller spaceship, which looks so alive. You can almost feel the heat radiating off the canvas. I’m put in mind of Syd Mead who did similar work around the same time. Like a conversation between two friends working in the same idiom, but with their own peculiar accent. For me, this painting isn't about illustrating a specific scene, it's about the joy of painting, the process of bringing these metallic behemoths to life on canvas.