As an artist living in the Susquehanna River Valley I became intrigued by TMI and its imposing presence on the landscape. Landscape and environmental issues are a central themes in my artwork which for many years now has consisted of large aerial landscape paintings made from photographs I make from open cockpit helicopter flights up and down the river.
In 2012 I made a large scale landscape painting (pictured below) entitled, “Release”, oil and pastel on linen. This was the first in a series of paintings I made from my own photographs and it depicts the large steam clouds that often form over the remaining functioning towers. Of course the accident and near meltdown were on my mind, but the towers today have a kind of “ugly beauty”, to borrow a term from Thelonious Monk. They are at once part of the landscape while they reflect the evening sun, and dominate it ways that reminds us of the need to protect the natural environment for our children.
The painting, “Release” was featured in four exhibitions across Pennsylvania, including “Pennsylvania Seen”, at the Lancaster Museum of Art in 2011, and “Upstream & Down: The Susquehanna”, Curated by Stanley I Grand at the Sardoni Art Gallery, Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, in 2016. The painting is now in a permanent collection of Pennsylvania artists at Gardner Russo and Gardner LLC, in Lancaster, PA. I believe that viewing the artwork is open to the public.
A visitor at an opening reception once asked me why I was attracted to TMI as a subject for fine art paintings? I gestured across the gallery and a crowd had gathered around “Release” and they were all telling stories recollecting where they were at the time of the — almost meltdown — and I replied to them, “this happens everywhere the painting is displayed”.
The link to the Sardoni Gallery
https://www.wilkes.edu/arts/sordoni-art-gallery/_images/upsteam-and-down-catalogue.pdf
The link to R Scott Wright Studio website