When they were young, where our cars did go to get their petrol? Surely not the rectangular business-like filling stations we now see along our roads. No, in those days they went to a petrol station just around the corner. A petrol station where the friendly attendant asked: “Fill ‘r up, sir?” and then went on to clean your window, check your oil and your tire pressure. Those days have gone forever, because almost all those nice petrol station have been demolished. But not all is lost. Last Sunday I went to see an exhibition of an exceptional painter, whose subject is “lost petrol stations”. The painter, Araun Gordijn, is influenced by his intensive travels throughout the U.S. and its numerous scenes along the Interstate Highways. Those experiences formed the inspiration for a series of paintings, first of American petrol stations; later of Dutch petrol stations dating from the 1930’s to the 1960s. At first sight the paintings of Araun Gordijn seem to have been made with photographic detail, but they include always something to make you wonder about them. The exhibition could be seen in The Netherlands at the Louwman Collection until July 25, 2006. By the way, this particular Texaco filling station still exists on the Graafseweg in Nijmegen, but since a reconstruction of the Graafseweg in the seventies, it is no longer situated at a main road. These days it houses an architectural office.



July 1, 2006