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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Show Seen- Rod Penner: Small-Town Meditations – Traveling exhibition seen in NYC @ Meisel Gallery

“America: A Nation of Small Towns”
Title of the 2020 United States Census Report.

Small towns in the big town. The opening, NYC, March 18. 2023.

I’ve already written as much, and maybe more, than anyone else has about Rod Penner’s Art over the past six years. Most recently, I wrote my fifth Penner piece, an extensive look and the first anywhere, at the first full-length book on his work, Rod Penner: Paintings, 1987-2022. If Mr. Penner’s work speaks to you and you haven’t seen a copy, make a point to. It accomplishes the rare double feat of being equal parts long-awaited full-length Monograph and Catalogue Raisonne, containing everything he’s Painted through 2022, in one volume. All of this being said, my pieces on his Art were based on seeing one show of smaller Paintings in 2017 and two works in a prior group show. This spring, I finally had a chance to see a show with a more representative overview of his work going back to 1998. I came away feeling I saw much in his work I hadn’t seen before.

My only previous Rod Penner solo show, in 2017, consisted solely of 6 by 6 inch and 5 by 7 inch Paintings, each jam-packed with detail. Though Sands Hotel & Cafe/Vaughn, MN, 2019, Acrylic on canvas, is a huge 31 by 64 inches (almost 5 1/2 feet long!), the detail is every bit as stunning, representing a staggering amount of work. I continually get lost looking at the fore and mid-ground in what strikes me as a bit of an unusual composition. But, of course, there’s much more to it. Click for full size.

Rod Penner: Small-Town Meditations consisted of a group of 17 Paintings that establish Mr. Penner as the foremost Painter of small town America working today, inheriting the mantle from John Salt, and Charles Sheeler & Edward Hopper before the late Mr. Salt (1937-2021).

John Salt, Red Mailbox #2, 2015, Casein on linen, 45 x 65 inches. Seen in 2018 in the same space occupied by Rod Penner: Small-Town Meditations. Casein is a water soluble medium that derives from milk casein, and is used masterfully here to create such a rich, yet mysterious, atmosphere.

Rod Penner was born & raised in Canada before marrying his wife, Debbie, and relocating to Texas in 1988, where the majority of his work is set. In the Q&A I did with him in 2017, the Artist said this about the beginning of his Painting career-

“Shortly after arriving in the Lone-Star State, I rediscovered the work of John Salt and felt an instant connection. I couldn’t drive past a trailer home (and there are many in Texas) without thinking “Salt.” At this point, I wanted to spend more time in the studio and less time searching out subjects to paint, so I started driving around the town we lived in and took photos of these tract houses that were everywhere. I found them visually interesting. As with all the streets and buildings that I paint, these homes, under certain weather and lighting conditions, became transformed. I painted my first tract house in 1989 and it sparked a series of paintings that were later shown at O.K. Harris in NY.”

614/House with Daffodils, 1998, 10 1/4 x 15 inches, Acrylic on board.

While people appear in very few of his Paintings, right from the beginning, virtually every piece he’s created is rich with their presence. First, there’s what people have built on the land that signifies them. Then there’s the condition of these structures, which are steeped in individual modifications and adornment. Some are in need of attention; perhaps a new coat of paint or repairs. It seems that the occupants are too busy living in them to do them right now. In addition to the building, we often see the evidence of human habitation: toys, tools or lawn implements in the yard; though vehicles are not seen nearly as often as they are in John Salt’s homestead works where they are one of his trademarks. Combined with the lived-in condition of the house all of this makes for a de facto “Portrait” of its inhabitants, in my view. His work is rich in character, one thing that sets him apart. Character adds an incalculable amount of depth to his Paintings. In a larger sense, his work is a “Portrait” of how, and where, many Americans lived in the last half of the 20th and early parts of the 21st centuries.

212/House with Snow, 1998, 36 by 54 inches, From here on, all works shown are Acrylic on canvas unless noted.

The idea of “home” looms large in Rod Penner’s oeuvre, striking me as one of his main themes, be it in actual houses or motels (temporary homes), like Sands Hotel & Cafe/Vaughn, MN, 2019, shown earlier. None of his homes are palatial. Rather, they are all well lived-in. The roofs and paint look weather-worn, as if they’ve survived countless storms or harsh winters. It’s easy to make this fit the “Portrait” analogy. A number of his Texas scenes include snow- something the rest of us may have trouble associating with one of America’s southern-most states, but the terrible storms they’ve had these past years are changing that. Snow makes these scenes look they could have been seen in many other places in the country. Yet, in spite of it all, they’re still standing, and much of the same can no doubt be said of whoever lives in them.

212/House with Snow, 1998, a masterpiece in my view, sums up so much about the broad and vague idea of “home.” For me, that doesn’t necessarily mean a place; A person could be “home” for someone, and much of what I see here, and the feelings it generates, would still apply. Like virtually all of Rod Penner’s Paintings 212 cries out to be seen up close.

How much you see in a Rod Penner Painting is only limited by how long you look at it.

A number of his House Paintings are set during the Holidays. In this detail from 212/House with Snow, we see the Christmas tree lying diagonally in front ready to go out with the trash & recycling. A poignant image by itself. It’s been there a little while given it’s snowed since it was put there. A toy bus (maybe a Xmas present?) pokes out from a red box with an intricate logo on it- all in this stunning little section, which is typical of all of Rod Penner’s Paintings. Oh! That’s before you get around to admiring the incredible detail on the Christmas tree branches, the tree trunk behind it, or the condition of the paint on the house and garage! Then, there’s the ground…

Yet here, as in all Rod Penner’s work, in my opinion, he puts the detail at the service of Art. The detail is revelatory, like a well-turned sentence in a great novel, or like the floor in Jan van Eyck’s The Annunciation in Washington. It never preaches. It never gives too much away, leaving it all to the viewer. In fact, when I first met Mr. Penner, he was reluctant to speak about his Art. He told me he wanted his Art to speak for itself. Personally, I’m glad he has softened that stance a bit and has spoken about his work, especially in his Artist’s Statement in his book. I only wish the Art media respected what the Artist says about his/her own work more than what anyone else says about it.

Bar-B-Q/Marble Falls, TX, 2022, 12 x 18 inches. The latest in a long and memorable series of roadside eateries and gas stations. Those foreshortened signs to the left must have been fun to Paint.

Another theme in his work is life on the move: gas stations and roadside eateries loom large here, in addition to motels.. This makes it apparent that the Artist gets around since every scene he renders he has visited in person. Sometimes, it’s hard to look at these and not smile. What may be Mr. Penner’s subtle sense of humor can be at once poignant, and again tack sharp. In person, the Artist is quick to smile, so it’s hard not to see that coming across in his work at times. At the March opening, two visitors were present who had traveled all the way from Marble Falls, TX for it. Well-familiar with the real-life Bar-B-Q back home, it must have been a strange, but welcoming, feeling to see its likeness hanging on the wall in a SoHo gallery thousands of miles from home.

Buy Pecans Here/San Saba, Tx, 2021, 31 by 52 inches.

Buy Pecans Here/San Saba, Tx, 2021 marks Rod Penner’s return to large Painting after his series of small San Saba pieces I saw in his last NYC solo show. When I look at this, I see an early 21st century “History Painting.” The Old Masters famously rendered scenes from history, usually in suitably large scale. Here, Rod Penner shows a number of stages of San Saba’s history in one scene in the recent past (2021). In the back, San Saba County Courthouse, 1911, peaks out of the trees and rooftops, surrounded by what man has built in the area in the following 110 years, including telephone poles and power wires, which may now carry the internet, including NighthawkNYC. San Saba is known as the “Pecan Capital of the World,” so the appropriately sized Pecan store sits stolidly on the earth occupying much of the right side as if anchoring that reputation. Further down the block on that side is G&R Grocery, behind the white pickup. Across the street in the rear the red brick of “Station” peaks out- that’s the only word left on its sign. Mr. Penner featured both of these buildings in his San Saba Series of small Paintings in 2016-7, which I showed here. Buy Pecans Here also got its own Painting. In the front left is another one, the former San Saba Butane Co., which he immortalized in a show-stopping small Painting of the same name, looking a bit more the worse for wear than it does even here. Yet, it’s still standing, seemingly waiting for what’s coming next. The ground weather and the skies add incalculably to the mood. An unfathomable amount of work must have gone into this Painting.

Like San Saba Butane, a number of the places he Paints are out of business. I don’t have to tell anyone how prevalent that is, wherever you are, in the age of the pandemic, before and “after.” Yet, it’s something rarely seen in Painting. Businesses opening, being active, and going out of business are part of the business cycle. That is the “history” I see in Buy Pecans Here/San Saba, Tx.

Bertram Supply Co., 2015-6, 31 by 52 inches.

Rod Penner Paints democratically. I’m not referring to politics. I’m using the word in its original meaning. That is that Rod Penner Paints everything he shows us with equal weight. Virtually everything, front to back, is in focus, like it is in many of Richard Estes’s Paintings. Everything is shown at the hyperlocal distance, as Photographers say¹. Therefore, it’s up to each viewer to decide what’s important to the narrative they weave in their mind. It also allows for different scenarios at each viewing with different things standing out each time.

Compositionally, it seems to me that many, if not most, of Mr. Penner’s Paintings, and all those shown here, consist of three horizontal “bands” or areas. He presents the sky in a top band, the buildings/main subjects in the center band, and the ground weather in the lower/foreground band. One of the subtler joys of Rod Penner’s work is that he is a master of rendering the ground effects of weather (i.e. rain, snow, graupel, mud, or the baked naked earth), a bit like JMW Turner was a master or rendering skies (in a completely different way, of course). The ground weather is a unique, and often stunning, part of most of his Paintings, easy to overlook, but not to be missed. The detail they contain is astonishing and in addition to adding so much to the “narrative,” they also hint at how much time and thought went into every inch of his Paintings- regardless of size.

Welcome to PennerVille. A close look at Bertram Supply Co., reveals the Artist’s name on the street sign, with “Rod E.” foreshortened for the cross street sign under it, indicative that he’s put his name on this scene. It’s becoming his genre.

Rod Penner: Small-Town Meditations sums up in capsule form Rod Penner’s accomplishment. To me, that is nothing less than preserving the lives that countless Americans have lived these past 40 years in paint. Rod Penner is creating a body of work that defines and preserves what a good deal of America- small town America (which most of America consists of)- is and has been like these past 4 decades as much, if not more, than any other Artist has.

Having said that, I would also add that I’m not sure that that’s his point! It may be. Or, it may simply be what I’m seeing in his work. His Art is open-ended enough so that everyone is free to see in it what they will.

Rod Penner discussing how he created some of the detail in Yellow Light/Brenham, TX, 2004-5, 15 x 25 inches with a visitor behind him at the opening, March 18, 2023.

Saying all of this would seem to overlook the most obvious characteristic of Rod Penner’s Paintings: his world-class technique. His technical skill (readily seen in the details from Bertram Supply Co., or 212/House with Snow, above) approaches the level of the Old Masters. Yet, technique, by itself, does not make Art. In Rod Penner’s case, his technique is only the beginning of the story. Every time you look at his work, you get to write your own ending for it. 

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Small Town” by John Mellencamp.

My prior pieces on Rod Penner are-

“The Vermeer of Marble Falls, Texas,”April 28, 2017

“Rod Penner: Brilliance, Under Cloudy Skies,” June 10, 2017

“Q&A With Master Painter Rod Penner,” June 14, 2017

“Rod Penner’s Neighborhood,” August 3, 2017

and- “NoteWorthy Art Books- Rod Penner: Paintings, 1988-2022,” April 7, 2023.

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