When the Ashcan movement was at its height in the late 19th and early 20th century, it was a departure from Impressionists in that it was one of the first times realism was, indeed, real in the American sense. They focucsed on a more seedy and working class side of NYC, nightlife and workers and city scenes not often depicted in painting. Matt Bollinger, the contemporary Ithaca-based painter and animator has that Ashcan spirit in his work; in an era of figurative and portrait painting, he is focusing on a more lost sense of the middle class and the American Dream. And he paints it both with care and careful observation.