Cedar Rapids artist Paul Marlow takes top honors in 2 different mediums at the 2020 Iowa State Fair.

By H.B. Wheaten

In 2019, artist Paul Marlow painted a simple group of buildings in Marion, Iowa.
Exactly one year later—to the minute—the artist returned to photograph the subject of his award-winning work: Zoey’s Pizzeria, July 5, 7:16 pm. Marlow wanted to see how the light and shadows compared to his painting from the previous year. He was there also to pick up a large pizza, but that was not his main objective: He was there to see the light.

Actually it was a bit of a surprise that Marlow won first prize for Zoey’s Pizzeria, July 5, 7:16 pm, as this was the first work in acrylics he had ever entered in a competition. Many of Marlow's paintings reflect his interest in American realist painter Edward Hopper's style, which is very much in evidence here, with its realistic depiction of an American scene expressed in the strong contrasts between shadow, light and color.

In Zoey’s Pizzeria, July 5, 7:16 pm, we see before us an uninhabited small town scene. The background consists of an after-storm sky, punctuated by streetlights, telephone poles, and vents—all indicators of contact with people and the outside world. In the middle ground sit the brick buildings, with shops below at street level, the much-loved pizzeria with it’s vintage billboard—and the foreground of 7th Avenue in partial shadow. The avenue also connects to the outside world, leading out of town. They contrast with the time-worn, but stately and enduring presence of the warmly lit pizzeria. The streetlights balance all the horizontals in the painting while helping to fill in the negative space of the sky. Significantly, it is the warm, end-of-day light on the rich red surface that has captured the artist's attention.

On the surface, the painting is an homage to one of the artist’s favorite restaurants, but it is much more than that. It is a love of light, and an example of the use of light to create an ethereal mood. It is straightforward and conveys a sense of isolation, yet the lighting softens these characteristics.

“I have always been interested in capturing the feeling of a place.” says Marlow. “There is something very American about this subject—a balance of beautiful light, small town architecture and cultural nostalgia. I have been thinking a lot about nostalgia, and how it affects the way we see things. Nostalgia often sees only the good and ignores the bad. It can be a delicate, bitter-sweet lie we tell ourselves. But nostalgia doesn’t have to be negative—however, I want to portray it honestly. That’s why it was important to show the cracks in the pavement, the imperfections and rough-edges. Showing the truth makes it more real.”

“Lately, I have been feeling more sentimental regarding memories of my past. Perhaps we all have, especially during the pandemic. We know that we are in a time of change. So we are yearning for the happiness we felt in a former place, time or situation. I want to capture that feeling.”

Another recent work inspired by real life: Fanfare for the Mailman (W 56th & 9th Ave, NYC) features a New York City postal worker, pushing a cart full of packages across 9th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. It was March 20, 2019 and Marlow was visiting a chilly New York with his wife and daughter.

An American Allegory

Far beyond simply capturing the light of Hopper’s New York, Marlow has tried to capture the quintessential spirit of the great American city in this one scene. The composition, though busy, is straightforward. The viewer goes immediately to the postal worker, guided by converging perspective lines. A tumultuous sky and empty street break up the complex elements of buildings, boxes and construction site debris. Marlow even suggests that the worker is moving symbolically from order to chaos—a way of confronting life in present-day America. There is a sense of transforming the present into some kind of time capsule—a period picture.

Marlow writes, “I knew at that moment I would paint this man and this scene. He was like a hero out of Greek mythology—a twenty-first century Sisyphean man, condemned to push that boulder up a mountain for all eternity. After the pandemic erupted, his story took on added significance.”

”This work is an elegy, a fanfare for the common man and essential worker. He seemingly forges on with his burden, going from lightness/order, to darkness and chaos. He is an American allegory. I wonder what has become of him.”

It’s not surprising to see that Marlow features Amazon boxes so prominently in this work—he had just visited an Andy Warhol exhibit at the Whitney Museum, replete with art of Brillo pad boxes and Campbell soup cans. “I found it amusing that the stacked Amazon boxes resemble a person smiling in their sleep.”

Marlow works hard to present the appearance of the truth in painting as his first effect. His paintings offer something familiar to draw the viewer in and, at the same time, focus on the unexpected or overlooked. Marlow is a storyteller, and his work shows us that these stories are constructed as deceptively simple truths: the past, like the present, is complicated, messy, and contradictory. The fact that histories have multiple points of view is a given for Marlow, and his work offers these perspectives for the viewer both to experience and reveal.

Rather than dwell in the past, Marlow’s work tends to focus on the here-and-now, but in a way that captures his subject in the process of change. Finding beauty in that change, and in the remarkable beauty of unremarkable places, seems to be an ongoing mission for the artist.

“We have art for a very good reason. All of us need to open our eyes, see beauty in humble places, and value how it feels as experience washes over us.”