The noted painter Jason Kowalski is regarded for his reverential images of the American landscape, which are suffused with sunlight, nostalgia, and remarkable detail. Kowalski’s motels, diners, bowling alleys, and other buildings each invoke the passage of time, their paint jobs fading and their signage sun-bleached. However, Kowalski’s remarkable imagery is painted with both veneration and beauty, invoking the romantic associations and relationships that we might have with the past. Hidden within the mottled textures of Kowalski’s paintings is a trove of collaged materials—handwritten notes, newspaper clippings, faded photographs, vintage postcards, and other ephemera. For Kowalski, these found materials act both as elements of composition and as conduits for allusive or poetic meaning. When taken alongside his subjects, the element of collage invites the viewer to consider further the properties of memory, which serves to bridge the past with the present. Rather than memento mori, Kowalski’s scenes of the crumbling architecture, automobiles, and signage of highway towns and communities on the cusp of the American countryside evoke a spirit of resilience even as his subjects transform with age. According to Kowalski, “There is beauty in the undone, the abandon...” and his affectionate treatment of these nearly forgotten places gestures toward our shared sense of American memory. In so doing, his art also appeals to our sense nostalgia—a feeling that hinges on both memory and our ability to form a sense of story. Jason Kowalski was born in Boynton Beach, Florida but spent most of his childhood in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art from the Laguna College of Art and Design in 2009. His work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and publications across the United States.