Guy Hepner Gallery

Terry Urban Showdown at Rodeo Motel For Sale

Terry Urban
Terry Urban - Showdown at Rodeo Motel, 2024, Acrylic, oil, aerosol, pastel, and airbrush on canvas

Showdown at Rodeo Motel, 2024

Acrylic, oil, aerosol, pastel, and airbrush on canvas

60 x 96 in (diptych)

About this work

Terry Urban's "Showdown at Rodeo Motel" commands attention as a monumental diptych that captures the charged atmosphere of an American roadside narrative frozen in time. The expansive 60 x 96 inch canvas provides Urban with a cinematic scope to unfold a scene dense with tension and nostalgia. The work employs Urban's characteristic mixed-media approach, layering acrylic, oil, aerosol, pastel, and airbrush to create a surface that vibrates with textural complexity. Passages of smooth, airbrushed gradients suggesting desert skies or neon glow collide with gestural strokes and gritty aerosol marks that evoke the weathered facades and dusty lots of mid-century motor lodges. The composition channels the iconography of the American West—its mythology of confrontation, transience, and faded glamour—while filtering it through a contemporary sensibility. Urban's palette likely oscillates between sun-bleached earth tones and the artificial punch of motel signage, creating a visual push and pull that mirrors the work's implied drama. The diptych format itself suggests duality: two figures facing off, past meeting present, or the split-second before and after a decisive moment. Within Urban's broader practice, this piece exemplifies his ongoing engagement with American vernacular imagery and his ability to synthesize street art energy with painterly sophistication. The work carries an emotional weight that balances cinematic romanticism with an undercurrent of melancholy, inviting viewers into a story that feels both familiar and unresolved. Those interested in acquiring "Showdown at Rodeo Motel" are encouraged to contact Guy Hepner gallery in New York for availability and further details.

Price on Application

Edition & Provenance

Year
2024
Medium
Acrylic, oil, aerosol, pastel, and airbrush on canvas

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Showdown at Rodeo Motel

About Terry Urban

Terry Urban was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and moved to San Diego after high school to pursue skateboarding, where he was first introduced to turntablism. He returned to Cleveland to work as a DJ, later landing a role at Sirius Satellite Radio, before relocating to New York City in 2006 to focus on music full time. He built a career producing mixtapes, including Viva la Hova, Southerngold, and Biggie Stardust, earning recognition from artists including Jay-Z, Coldplay, and Drake.

In 2015, after more than a decade in the music industry, Urban returned to painting, treating it as a new creative outlet and eventually a full-time practice. His work is bold and gestural, combining vibrant color with symbolic, often somber imagery, including skulls, bones, and fragmented figures that speak to mortality, resilience, and inner conflict. Despite the weight of his subject matter, his paintings carry an underlying sense of energy and momentum, shaped by the same restless drive that carried him through skateboarding and music.

Urban brings a disciplined, almost ritualistic approach to his studio practice, working extended painting sessions often set against music or film. His path from street culture to music to visual art has become part of his artistic identity, and his work resonates as a document of reinvention as much as a body of paintings.

Guy Hepner works with collectors seeking Terry Urban's bold, symbolic paintings shaped by his path through music and street culture. Contact us to discuss available inventory or to inquire about upcoming releases.

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