Groveland Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Concrete Evidence, an exhibit of new paintings by Rod Massey. Massey, a well-established Minneapolis artist, has been exhibiting his work for over 40 years. Massey’s paintings are included in public and private collections throughout the Midwest. He has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a Bush Foundation Fellowship, a McKnight Foundation Fellowship, and a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant.

Massey is a part of a group of contemporary Midwestern artists dedicated to continuing and re-examining the tradition of American Realist scene painting. Over the past 40 years, Massey’s subjects have included the houses and yards of his quiet Southwest Minneapolis neighborhood, abandoned industrial warehouses, gritty highways, and neglected grain elevators. In his artist’s statement Massey has written:

“I strive to reveal the underlying character of the mundane and unremarkable scenes that populate my world… and record them with unsentimental honesty and affection”.

Massey’s sustained investigation of these ordinary places, objects, surfaces and facades illustrates his personal and sometimes exasperated affection for the urban landscape. Focusing on the less-inhabited areas of the urban landscape, he keenly describes the sometimes awkward intersection between the domestic and industrial landscapes that coexist in city life.