Continuing through October 1, 2026

Richard Sheehan’s haunting and evocative exhibition, “Light Beneath,” draws together three decades of work. It highlights the late artist’s longstanding focus on the urban landscape, particularly his two major sources of inspiration, roadway architecture and commercial signage.

The majority of the 26 works on view spring from Sheehan’s careful observation of bridges and highway overpasses. Returning repeatedly to the same sites along Boston’s Northeast Expressway and the Neponset River, he captures varying manifestations of light and color. Focusing on architectural elements so underappreciated as to be nearly invisible, a kaleidoscope of colors and textures provide moments of animation amidst the otherwise anonymous void of the roadway.

In “First Snow and Bridge” (1988), the scrutiny of a scrap of light in a rectangular shape lends the image the appearance of a rear-view mirror, harkening back to the context of the road. Working in plein air and year-round (even through frigid Boston winters), Sheehan has frequently dedicated himself to capturing the same subject in different seasons.

Inherent in Sheehan’s work is a push and pull between representation and abstraction, as faithful depictions of the urban landscape bump up against its stark, spare geometric topography. The canvases here are void of people, underscoring the sense of melancholy and alienation that comes with the artist’s grasp of the urban environment. In a city teeming with people, these paintings convey that it’s possible to feel all the more alone.

The impasto paint handling demonstrates Sheehan’s confidence with his medium, a technique built up over decades of plein air practice. The layers are made to feel even more textural due to the way in which he signs his work — running a fingernail through the accumulation of paint.

While the shadowy undersides of bridges and roads form the bulk of works in this exhibition, the commercial signage paintings are equally intriguing. Coming late in Sheehan’s career, the shift towards capturing logos — the architecture of capitalism itself — demonstrates Sheehan’s turn towards the conceptual. The sparse tableau “Mobil-Quaker Highway-Uxbridge MA” (1992) marks his crossover from urban landscape to pop art.

Never before publicly displayed, Sheehan’s series of McDonald’s golden arches not only depicts the commercial icon but offers a critique of the capitalist system. Inscribed on the sunny logo are topical references from the 1960s that feel foreboding: the date of the JFK assassination, “Ask Not,” “Vietnam” and “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.” The conflating of the cheerful with the menacing echo Sheehan’s empty roadways, at once filled with beautiful light but also devoid of humanity.

Richard Diebenkorn’s landscapes also exemplify the tension between representation and abstraction we see in Sheehan’s work, which also invokes Edward Hopper’s somber depictions of urban life. Yet, with his obsessive focus on the negative space of roadways and propensity for painting in plein air, Sheehan crafted a style uniquely his own, one dictated by the weather, the light, and the color of a singular moment.