Road Trip 2021

Curator: Welcome. The painting we're observing is Carrie Graber's "Road Trip," a plein-air work from 2021. The style evokes both contemporary and realist traditions. Editor: It feels immediately nostalgic, doesn't it? Like a sun-drenched memory viewed through a hazy filter. It's also remarkably still, like pressing pause on a very specific kind of California dream. Curator: I'm drawn to the depiction of the liminal space. We have the vehicle itself, filled with postcards and evoking journeys, positioned in the context of mid-century modern architecture typical of Southern California’s affluent suburbs. It explores themes of mobility, memory, and spatial identity. Editor: Those postcards lined up on the back shelf–it's a charming detail, isn't it? Almost like a scrapbook on wheels, marking time and place. I bet the artist is inviting us into a narrative – bits and pieces from many travels all stacked together. There's also something ever so slightly melancholic that cuts across its breezy optimism. Curator: Precisely. It presents an interesting discourse around consumerism, automotive culture, and the mythology of the “open road” in relation to gender, as women are often excluded from road trip lore despite their centrality to domestic travel. It invites us to critically consider that "open road" and who has true access. Editor: Yes! It's like the vehicle has come to rest, both literally and figuratively, as though pondering the contradictions of mobility and permanence. The interplay between light and shadow and the painting's stillness… It's deceptively complex and layered. Curator: Graber's painting offers viewers an intersectional critique on landscape painting traditions, while alluding to the gendered, raced, and classed dimensions of travel and leisure within visual culture. Editor: I’m grateful to Graber for this meditation on memories, place, and progress. Curator: Ultimately, "Road Trip" urges us to reflect on our place within broader narratives of exploration and social mobility. Editor: And to consider how something as simple as a road trip carries so many cultural complexities within it.