Joseph Cates paints from feeling rather than from a purely realistic approach to a scene. Joseph’s renderings are a combination of his reflections on the past through images of everyday realities. His paintings reflect an admiration for modern landscape painters. This influence is particularly evident in the atmosphere created by suffused light throughout his work. Joseph uses photographs and sketches as a starting point for his compositions. Once the idea is on canvas he lets the paint react to the composition and mood of the piece. For Cates, a scene or landscape’s most important feature is the feeling that it invokes. His marks create motion, skewing one’s temporal perception of the still image. The work is gestural, emotive, pushing and pulling and in this way a complexity emerges from the seemingly simple landscapes of industrial and urban settings, which he is drawn towards.