Yahoo data center, Lockport, New York 2019

Jarik Jongman conjures this Yahoo data center in Lockport, New York, as a landscape steeped in the language of modern architecture. It’s easy to imagine Jongman wrestling with the canvas, pushing and pulling blocks of color across the surface. Look at the sky, a blend of yellows and oranges melting into darkness. There’s this palpable sense of searching, a feeling of the painting revealing itself through layers of trial and error. You know, I can picture him stepping back, squinting, then diving back in with another stroke. It feels like Jongman's painting is a dialogue, maybe with the stark geometry of the building itself. It definitely reminds me of some of Edward Hopper’s paintings, those lonely buildings bathed in strange light. But Jongman does something different here. It’s like he’s not just showing us the place but trying to feel the pulse of the space, its emotional temperature. Painters are always talking to each other, across time, inspiring each other, and pushing the boundaries of what paint can do. And ultimately, painting is about embracing uncertainty, finding new ways of seeing and feeling, and trusting the process to lead us to something unexpected.