Are the reduced-to-no-scenery paintings still somehow landscapes?
J.R.: I consider everything to have a landscape component, even though there may not be formal components that reveal a landscape. So maybe I would do a big blue field – to me it was a place, but you wouldn’t know that. There’s no visual information to indicate that. A&S: When you were listing your various series, you didn’t say Texas. Are you consciously not painting the homeland? J.R.: I’m going out to Lubbock and West Texas towards the end of July. I’ll do a reconnaissance mission and take pictures and see if I can work some of that into a series. But I don’t know. It’s just one of those things where I’m attracted to the Texas imagery, I’m familiar with it, I go to West Texas, I’m from West Texas, but it hasn’t translated that well. A&S: You’re mythologizing L.A., yet you’re living in a state that is equally as mythic. J.R.: That’s true, but if you look at the work, I don’t approach these places from a sense of familiarity. They’re about the myth. If it’s mythic, you can’t be famili
