Like many of Crawford's works, Sanford Tanks depicts industrial subjects, in this case the gasoline tanks lining the river in Sanford, Florida, where the artist spent a number of months as an artist–in–residence. Crawford collapses the foreground space and flattens the forms of the tanks, using them as a means to explore color and its relationship to shape and form. He explained, "I am never concerned with a pictorial logic to the exclusion of feeling. For me, the shape relationships are right only when they feel right, as well as look right."
Gallery label from American Modern: Hopper to O'Keeffe, August 17, 2013–January 26, 2014.