In Past-Up a city reclaims its history. Kevin Riordan’s paintings, done between 2008 and 2012 attempt to re-envision Chicago, currently full of “coarse, outsized buildings…thrown up with less taste and tact than it takes to save a parking space with a broken chair.” Riordan is out to redress his grievances against modern architecture and aesthetics, returning the cityscape to a more evocative era. Each painting is labeled with location and date. Through his paintings, Riordan cobbles together a majestic chimera, a city with disregard to time, change or convenience. Past-Up operates in the grand tradition of the classical nude or the Gothic landscape, idealizing the subject past recognizability, in hopes that this will make it immortal.