The abandoned and forgotten landscapes of rural southwestern towns are the favored subjects of Rod Penner’s paintings. His deft use of contrasts in his
images—despondency and hope, isolation and nostalgia—evokes memories of The Last Picture Show and elicits complex responses from viewers. “I’m interested in the look of things and the quality of being there,” he says. “A moment that is completely frozen with all the variety of textures; rust on poles, crumbling asphalt, light hitting the grass.”
Penner’s works are based on his photographs, digital video stills, and his experience of the rural landscapes of Texas and New Mexico. He depicts desolate, often deserted locations, the character of old houses and abandoned buildings, weather, and unique geography. His chosen scenes are infused with a cinematic quality that is the result of the exquisite light that he captures with his meticulous process. “The finished paintings should evoke contrasting responses of melancholy and warmth, desolation and serenity,” he says.
Penner’s hyperrealistic technique meticulously records both the iconic imagery and the beauty in the ashes of these once-prosperous streets and neighborhoods that still endure. The incredibly poignant scenes evoke a universalism, a collective experience seen through the lens of Americana. “You won’t find any hidden or overt socio-political meaning in my work and at the same time I hope that by utilizing what I find in the American landscape I’m able to connect to viewers on a deeper psychological level.”

David Anfam is a curator, writer, and authority on modern American art. He is the senior consulting curator at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, and the director of its Research Center. His publications include Abstract Expressionism (1990), the catalogue raisonné Mark Rothko: Works on Canvas (1998), and studies on Anish Kapoor, Edward Kienholz, and Wayne Thiebaud. Terrie Sultan is an independent curator, cultural consultant, and Principal Museum Strategist for Art Museum Strategies @ Hudson Ferris, a boutique consulting firm based in New York City. She was the director of the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York, as well as the director of The Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston in Texas. Louis K. Meisel is an American author, art collector, and dealer, as well as a proponent of the Photorealist art movement. He has contributed to four volumes documenting the genre, numerous monographs, and he continues to organize international museum exhibitions for leading Photorealist artists.

Artnet, March 8, 2023, Artnet Gallery Network: "Canadian-born, Texas-based artist Rod Penner is recognized for his realist acrylic-on-canvas paintings that portray often overlooked or abandoned scenes in rural Texas. Devoid of human figuration and rendered with extreme attention to architectural and landscape detail, the photo-informed compositions not only convey a sense of meditative contemplativeness but also the artist’s meticulous technical skill..."

Contents: 7
Artist’s Statement | Rod Penner: 9
Foreword | Louis K. Meisel: 15
Main Street Mystery | David Anfam: 19
Rod Penner: The Narrative of No Narrative | Terrie Sultan: 35
Plates: 53
Acknowledgments: 185
Chronology: 187
Exhibitions: 191
Bibliography: 195
Index: 199
Photography Credits: 203

Serenity and mystery, nature’s aura and ersatz culture’s wilderness, all merge in Penner’s hands. . . . Penner proves that the marriage of painting and photograph is still alive, consummated and alluring in the twenty-first century. He restores to painting that which the German philosopher Walter Benjamin pinpointed as liable to disappear in the age of mechanical reproduction: aura.
From David Anfam essay, “Main Street Mystery”