Though Robert Cottingham is recognized as a photorealist, his thoroughly-detailed works of pre-digital Americana teeter on the edge of abstraction. Cottingham portrays mid-20th-century signs, typefaces, manual cameras, railroad boxcars, and mechanical components—what he has referred to as "tools of the Everyman"—in dynamic compositions marked by intensified color and light. His childhood visits to Times Square serve as the origins of his fascination with signs, as the artist himself has explained, "I think that’s when the seed was planted, when I saw the kind of activity going on above the ground level." Driven by an obsession with the exact geometry of his subjects, Cottingham's method involves a series of steps such as sketches, photographs, shapes mapped onto grids, and model construction. His sharp, at times monumental canvases celebrate and accentuate the forms of his subjects, all while avoiding nostalgia. Influenced by figures like Franz Kline, Edward Hopper, and the New Realists, Cottingham draws inspiration from various sources.