Rather than simply painting a word, Ruscha considers the particular font that might add an elevated emotion to its meaning, much like the way a poet considers syntax. By painting a word as a visual, the artist is marking it as endorsed, exalting it as an object rather than a mere piece of informative text. Ruscha is perhaps best known for his word-paintings, which skew the meaning of each word through color, background, and typeface. Of his work the artist has remarked: “I like the idea of a word becoming a picture, almost leaving its body, then coming back and becoming a word again”.

Ruscha’s love of language, especially that of signs and billboards from highways and the inner city, can be seen in the common abbreviation and typographically stylised lettering of ‘BLVD.’, ‘AVE.’ and ‘ST.’ that are prevalent in his most important works. The viewer may not immediately recognise that this grid-like pattern of wording is a street map, were it not for the text, which in itself takes on the appearance of the gritty, flat, monochromatic routes of the city streets that it denotes. The words are indeed the only indication of a human element in Ruscha’s sparse cityscapes and so perfectly illustrate his innovative style, that of directness, clarity and economy of means.

In the 1990s, Ruscha began a series of paintings developing on this theme, which showed simplified street locations of Los Angeles from an aerial perspective. Eyestorm collaborated with the artist at the end of this decade to release one such image, Street meets Avenue, which became a successful limited edition off 100 lithographic prints. In contrast with earlier landscape works by Ruscha which are colourful stereotypical rural scenes, Street meets Avenue appears anonymous, urban and abstract. For the painting that inspired this print, Ruscha used an airbrush tool and acrylic paint in order to achieve what art historian Richard D. Marshall has called ‘phantom avenues spray-painted on grounds of modulated greys and blacks’.

Constantly inventive, Ruscha continues to work to this day with intriguing combinations of picture and language in the editioned work that has become integral and essential to his art. Ruscha has been labeled by many, a ‘West Coast’ artist yet he is unique in that although Los Angeles is undeniably the source of inspiration for his art, yet the themes he addresses are far-reaching and universal. A growing interest in Ruscha’s work in recent years has led to major exhibitions that toured the United States, and a number of solo shows in Europe and one such show will be coming to the United Kingdom this summer as the artist brings his contribution to the 2005 Venice Biennale, to the National Gallery in in London.

Exploring the theme of 'progress, or the course of progress,' Ruscha’s solo exhibition will reference English-born American painter Thomas Cole’s famous painting cycle of 1833-36, The Course of Empire. Ruscha’s ‘Course of Empire’, and is open from June 11th through Oct 7th, 2018, at The National Gallery. With its focuses on the industrial buildings of Los Angeles - simple, utilitarian structures are presented with no pretention to beauty but strong reminiscent of economic might and global reach - it’s definitely not one to miss; quintessential Ruscha at his best.