These paintings of John Register’s begin with calm for me, then they move to intrigue. The desolate scenes devoid of people say so much in their emptiness of people been and gone and coming, and I wonder what those stories are and who they belong to. The lone chair does not so much as look empty, but rather on the cusp of being occupied – or recently abandoned. Register himself says the isolation in his paintings relate to the viewer. When compared to Edward Hopper he says, “With Hopper you witness someone else’s isolation; in my pictures, I think you, the viewer, become the isolated one.” (https://thestoopthestoop.wordpress.com/2014/09/06/loaded-emptiness-painting-by-john-register/)