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Investigating repulsion and seduction, my paintings of big-box stores are intended to elicit fear and awe at the vast American consumer landscape. I approach the work as a landscape painter, inspired by the theories of Edmund Burke's treatise on the sublime and its relationship with terror. This, paired with the concept of the divine power of the sublime, heavily influenced my depiction of these consumer spaces as Cathedrals of Desire. These environments represent not only the actual structural space and overwhelming chaos of goods, but also the psychology and vernacular of American consumerism. The obtrusive massive structures built with no attempt at aesthetic beauty reveal the most naked of American consumer desires. The language of American desire can be reduced to vignettes of patio furniture and gingham-covered tables set like small picnics. I respond to this landscape by obviating the contrast between the mundane and the dramatic; the absurd experience of both comfort and the pr