The Pink Elephant Super Car Wash neon sign glowing at night in Seattle's South Lake Union — the icon that inspired City Light.

An exhibition · Seattle · 2023

City Light

Joshua Borsman
with special guest Jacqueline Goldberg

An exhibition of large-format paintings honouring Seattle's neon signs.

Ground Floor Studio · South Lake Union, Seattle

About the exhibition

City Light gathered three of Seattle's most loved neon signs and translated them, one brush at a time, to acrylic on large-format canvas. The exhibition opened at Ground Floor Studio in South Lake Union in 2023 — the inaugural show for the year-long residency — and ran in the same block where the Pink Elephant Super Car Wash sign had just returned to public life, reconditioned by Amazon and reinstalled after the car wash closed in 2021.

The work is unabashedly affectionate. Each painting holds the geometry of its source — the curve of a letter, the flare of a glow, the small wear of weather and time — and then leans into colour the way only paint can. Pink becomes more pink. The teal of a Capitol Hill cafe sign deepens. The reds on a Georgetown marquee bloom. These are portraits of objects that already were portraits of themselves.

Joshua Borsman led the project and was joined by special guest Jacqueline Goldberg, whose eye for colour and form shaped the palette throughout. The two worked across the studio floor through the spring and summer, hand-mixing each pink, pulling chalk lines, masking and unmasking edges. What hung on opening night was the record of that process: signs made from the same patience that built the originals.

00

The Icon

The Pink Elephant Super Car Wash, reconditioned and reinstalled in 2023 after the original car wash closed in 2021. The sign that started the show.

The Pink Elephant Super Car Wash neon sign glowing at night in Seattle's South Lake Union — the icon that inspired City Light.
01

City Light

The exhibition takes its name from the CITY LIGHT marquee that hung above the gallery for the run of the show — and from its source, a small storefront sign in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood whose two words refuse the dim.

CITY LIGHT marquee letters in red neon, lit against the Ground Floor Studio at night.
Wide view of the CITY LIGHT marquee lighting the studio frontage.
CITY LIGHT marquee at the edge of the gallery, neon catching the wet pavement.
02

Georgetown, in passing

The original CITY LIGHT — a working storefront sign on Airport Way South. Photographed on scouting walks, then carried home as memory and reference.

The original CITY LIGHT neon sign in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood — direct source for the exhibit's title.
The CITY LIGHT signage above its storefront in Georgetown, Seattle.
03

An empty room

Ground Floor Studio before the work arrived. Five thousand square feet of concrete and glass on the ground floor of an Amazon building in South Lake Union — opened as a year-long artist's residency in 2023.

The empty Ground Floor Studio before installation — concrete floor, glass curtain wall, columns.
Looking deeper into the empty studio space before the work arrives.
Industrial ceiling and overhead infrastructure of the raw studio shell.
04

Mixing pink

Neon is a narrow band of colour. Acrylic is everything. The job, in the early weeks, was to bridge them — paint after paint, plate after plate, until each pink, red, teal, and gold sat correctly beside the others.

Overhead view of paint bottles and palette — the saturated colors of neon translated to acrylic.
Detail of mixed paint and palette knives mid-session.
05

CAR WASH — laying it out

The CAR WASH panel began as chalked letterforms drawn freehand across raw canvas, sized and re-sized until the type felt right at scale.

First chalked outlines of the CAR WASH lettering laid across a raw canvas.
CAR WASH letterforms taking shape in pink and teal underdrawing.
Close detail of the CAR WASH chalked typography.
Letter "R" of CAR WASH in early underpainting.
06

CAR WASH — laying down the pink

Over weeks the chalked letters were painted into neon — magentas and corals layered into the false glow that gives the sign its life at night.

Painting the CAR WASH panel — laying down the saturated pink fade.
The CAR WASH panel mid-process from above; brush, paper plate of pink, the lettering crystallising.
The CAR WASH panel further along, neon reds and magentas blooming.
Closer view of the CAR WASH panel — the painted neon's glow effect built in layers.
07

The Pink Elephant

A second panel rendered the elephant itself — the silhouette that has stood above Battery and Denny since 1956, dancing in tubing and gas.

Top-down view of the Pink Elephant marquee panel in early underdrawing — pink outline of the elephant.
The Pink Elephant marquee painting taking form across a large canvas on the studio floor.
Detail of the Pink Elephant marquee — the iconic silhouette and neon ribbon-letters.
The Pink Elephant marquee painting further developed, the saturated pinks now dominant.
08

Making the title

The CITY LIGHT title piece — pink-neon letters on navy ground — built across two panels destined to flank the exhibition entry.

First lay-in of the CITY LIGHT title piece — the letter forms in pink against deep navy.
The LIGHT panel mid-process, neon-pink outlines on a navy ground.
Both CITY and LIGHT panels assembled side-by-side on the floor.
The CITY LIGHT diptych at near-final state, palette in hand.
The finished CITY LIGHT title piece against the studio wall.
09

Lost Lake

Lost Lake Cafe & Lounge on East Olive Way — a 24-hour Capitol Hill diner whose neon script glows above an open / hours panel that hasn't really meant anything in years. Painted in the same patience as the others.

Lost Lake Cafe & Lounge painting — the Capitol Hill neon rendered in teal, gold, and cream.
10

Installed

The finished panels in place, the night before the doors opened. CITY LIGHT stretched across the entry. CAR WASH and the elephant facing the plaza glass.

The completed CAR WASH panel propped on the studio floor before opening.
The CITY LIGHT title piece laid out in the gallery before mounting.
CITY LIGHT pieces installed near the gallery window — daylight wash, neon palette.
Pink fade lettering installed across the gallery glazing at twilight.
11

Opening night

Doors open. Pink Elephant lit from inside, CITY LIGHT lit from outside, the South Lake Union plaza reflecting it all back at twice the saturation.

Opening night — Pink Elephant Car Wash painting and CITY LIGHT marquee lit against the dark plaza.
Opening night exterior view — the lit gallery glowing pink and red into the night.
Visitors at the opening reception of City Light at Ground Floor Studio.
Joshua Borsman at the City Light opening, the gallery glowing behind the glass.
12

Editioned ephemera

Holographic CAR WASH decals — a small editioned piece given to visitors at the opening. A sticker that, held to the light, glowed.

Holographic CAR WASH decal — editioned ephemera distributed at the opening.
Holographic CAR WASH decal in iridescent light.

Credits

Exhibition
City Light, 2023
Artist
Joshua Borsman
Special guest
Jacqueline Goldberg · @jgoldbergstudio
Venue
Ground Floor Studio, South Lake Union, Seattle
Medium
Acrylic on canvas; large-format panels
Photography
Joshua Borsman
Source signs
Pink Elephant Super Car Wash · CITY LIGHT (Georgetown) · Lost Lake Cafe & Lounge