Industrial Beauty
Fairfield Museum and History Center
350 Beach Rd, Fairfield, CT 06824
203.259.1598 • Fairfieldhistory.org
June 14 - July 25, 2024
Opening Reception is free & open to the public
Friday, June 28th from 6 - 8 PM
Industrial Beauty is presented as a complement to the Fairfield Museum’s exhibition of Westport-based artist Robert Lambdin’s work on the might of Bridgeport Connecticut’s factories and workers.
Industrial Beauty showcases the work of seven artists who capture the beauty of the American cityscape and landscape. Their inspirations for this show range from the urban architecture of New York City to the industrial structures of the Gowanus Canal.
Landscape painting, like the world it depicts, emerges from the individual’s discovery of the beauty, corrosion, and decay of our natural and manmade surroundings. Each artist here has mastered the genre of landscape realism and the special techniques of observation and expression in architectural and industrial realism. With unique ingenuity, each melds scenes of nature and industry in ways that preserve views of the past and present, and suggest timelessness, for viewers now and for the future of landscape representation.
Fairfield Museum and History Center
350 Beach Rd, Fairfield, CT 06824
203.259.1598 • Fairfieldhistory.org
June 14 - July 25, 2024
Opening Reception is free & open to the public
Friday, June 28th from 6 - 8 PM
Industrial Beauty is presented as a complement to the Fairfield Museum’s exhibition of Westport-based artist Robert Lambdin’s work on the might of Bridgeport Connecticut’s factories and workers.
Industrial Beauty showcases the work of seven artists who capture the beauty of the American cityscape and landscape. Their inspirations for this show range from the urban architecture of New York City to the industrial structures of the Gowanus Canal.
Landscape painting, like the world it depicts, emerges from the individual’s discovery of the beauty, corrosion, and decay of our natural and manmade surroundings. Each artist here has mastered the genre of landscape realism and the special techniques of observation and expression in architectural and industrial realism. With unique ingenuity, each melds scenes of nature and industry in ways that preserve views of the past and present, and suggest timelessness, for viewers now and for the future of landscape representation.
Review
Artists
Derek Buckner
Born in 1970, Derek Buckner lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife, novelist Joanna Hershon, their twin sons and daughter. The artist graduated from LaGuardia High School of Music and Art, as well as Vassar College, The Art Students League of New York and received a B.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Throughout his career as a painter, Derek Buckner has explored many different themes in his work but has always found himself returning to the urban landscape. Born and raised in Brooklyn, the artist has drawn and painted the Gowanus Canal and its surrounding areas for the past twenty-five years, and as the area has developed and changed, so has his work.
This new series—created during the pandemic—continues to focus on the industrial areas of the Gowanus, but as the global climate crisis intensifies, his paintings are also informed by more overt anxiety: What does it mean to bear witness to a rapidly changing landscape? Buckner’s personal and artistic investment in this shifting industrial neighborhood explores the relationship between destruction and growth, strength and impermanence.
Nicholas Evans-Cato
Brooklyn based artist Nicholas Evans-Cato draws his inspiration from the continually changing landscape of New York City. He has stated: “These perspectives are an effort to exploit the pictorial potential of the urban grid.” Fascinated by the many different perspectives through which the city can be viewed, Evans-Cato depicts shadow and detail at street level. “While box-like urban canyons frame motifs best captured in a square format, panoramic perspectives from shorelines and rooftops explode these tight spaces, and curvilinear trajectories mirror the dome of the sky.”
Just as aerial and waterfront views engender altered perspectives, so too does the weather. Evans-Cato frequently paints in the rain and snow which transpose the hard edges and straight urban lines. He explains that “While the rectangular building and orthogonal street grid may be the ultimate manifestation of the urban environments presumed inter logic, in the rain and fog, even the most brutally straight lines are softened.”
Kevin Frank
For me, combining the techniques of the ancient Greco-Roman painters with those of the old and new masters help to create unique modern images. As with all encaustic work, viewing it in person is the best way to appreciate the immediacy of the medium, brought to life as light travels through the layers of pigmented beeswax. Each new painting is another opportunity for a technical experiment, whether the focus is on a new blending method or trying out a new color harmony.
Ultimately, my work is not about pictorial invention to address social issues, etc., but rather to entertain the eye by recording, through observation and rendering, the play of light on a variety of materials. Maybe its function is to serve as a diversion from social issues - I leave that for the viewer to decide. My paintings are about painting and the joy of seeing.
Roland Kulla
I am fascinated by the built environment. I reflect on what the structures tell about their builders as well as their interaction with nature and the results of time. Since 1998 I’ve focused on the engineering ingenuity that created Chicago’s many bridges. Structural elements are abstracted from their context and painted with a hard-edged realism on a scale that highlights the monumentality of the forms and the creativity necessary for their existence. In 2006 I began to branch out to other “bridge” cities such as Boston, New York and Pittsburgh. More, I’m sure, will follow.
David Leonard
The primary subjects of my paintings are 21st century man's working monuments, which represent our culture's dedication to production and consumption. The essence of our way of life can been seen in our never ending attempt to subdue our environment. It is not my intention to either glorify or to condemn this objective, but to invite contemplation and leave judgment up to the viewer. I'm always looking for places where the man-made environment inundates the natural. I paint this in a way where subtle abstraction disassociates elements from the environment, creating an oscillating view of the natural and the fabricated.
Stephen Magsig
Working with images he personally photographs, Magsig looks for crucial details in both the highlights and the shadows, in the brightness and obscurity of each scene. The artist says, "I get caught up in the mix of organic and non-organic human signs: the color of loaves of bread in an Italian bakery window, the reflections of facades in the car’s windshield, the abstracted angles of cornices and architectural detail." New Yorkers will recognize many of the scenes Magsig paints, yet the universal appeal is the atmosphere and mood which attracts those for whom the images hold no personal significance. The painterly quality of the work provides enough photo-like detail to "slow people down to look and wonder about the scene." The artist creates work that depicts New York City as a dynamic metropolis -- although his images are devoid of people. The appreciation Magsig holds for the subjects he paints allows him to create beauty in streets that may escape even those of us who live there.
Bennett Vadnais
Bennett Vadnais’ newest work is created from intimate and humble architectural subjects around his neighborhood and home in Baltimore city. The pictures arise from direct observation of the locations that he records via numerous sketches, drawings and colors studies. Referring to them in his studio, Vadnais turns them into pictures through a lengthy process of reflection and distillation. He draws heavily on traditional methods of painting while employing modern materials such as acrylic paint and durable aluminum composite panels. The finished pictures have a complex balance of observed facts, memory and invention. Through these modest structures with their subtle play of light and texture, he finds magic in the mundane.
Born in 1970, Derek Buckner lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife, novelist Joanna Hershon, their twin sons and daughter. The artist graduated from LaGuardia High School of Music and Art, as well as Vassar College, The Art Students League of New York and received a B.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Throughout his career as a painter, Derek Buckner has explored many different themes in his work but has always found himself returning to the urban landscape. Born and raised in Brooklyn, the artist has drawn and painted the Gowanus Canal and its surrounding areas for the past twenty-five years, and as the area has developed and changed, so has his work.
This new series—created during the pandemic—continues to focus on the industrial areas of the Gowanus, but as the global climate crisis intensifies, his paintings are also informed by more overt anxiety: What does it mean to bear witness to a rapidly changing landscape? Buckner’s personal and artistic investment in this shifting industrial neighborhood explores the relationship between destruction and growth, strength and impermanence.
Nicholas Evans-Cato
Brooklyn based artist Nicholas Evans-Cato draws his inspiration from the continually changing landscape of New York City. He has stated: “These perspectives are an effort to exploit the pictorial potential of the urban grid.” Fascinated by the many different perspectives through which the city can be viewed, Evans-Cato depicts shadow and detail at street level. “While box-like urban canyons frame motifs best captured in a square format, panoramic perspectives from shorelines and rooftops explode these tight spaces, and curvilinear trajectories mirror the dome of the sky.”
Just as aerial and waterfront views engender altered perspectives, so too does the weather. Evans-Cato frequently paints in the rain and snow which transpose the hard edges and straight urban lines. He explains that “While the rectangular building and orthogonal street grid may be the ultimate manifestation of the urban environments presumed inter logic, in the rain and fog, even the most brutally straight lines are softened.”
Kevin Frank
For me, combining the techniques of the ancient Greco-Roman painters with those of the old and new masters help to create unique modern images. As with all encaustic work, viewing it in person is the best way to appreciate the immediacy of the medium, brought to life as light travels through the layers of pigmented beeswax. Each new painting is another opportunity for a technical experiment, whether the focus is on a new blending method or trying out a new color harmony.
Ultimately, my work is not about pictorial invention to address social issues, etc., but rather to entertain the eye by recording, through observation and rendering, the play of light on a variety of materials. Maybe its function is to serve as a diversion from social issues - I leave that for the viewer to decide. My paintings are about painting and the joy of seeing.
Roland Kulla
I am fascinated by the built environment. I reflect on what the structures tell about their builders as well as their interaction with nature and the results of time. Since 1998 I’ve focused on the engineering ingenuity that created Chicago’s many bridges. Structural elements are abstracted from their context and painted with a hard-edged realism on a scale that highlights the monumentality of the forms and the creativity necessary for their existence. In 2006 I began to branch out to other “bridge” cities such as Boston, New York and Pittsburgh. More, I’m sure, will follow.
David Leonard
The primary subjects of my paintings are 21st century man's working monuments, which represent our culture's dedication to production and consumption. The essence of our way of life can been seen in our never ending attempt to subdue our environment. It is not my intention to either glorify or to condemn this objective, but to invite contemplation and leave judgment up to the viewer. I'm always looking for places where the man-made environment inundates the natural. I paint this in a way where subtle abstraction disassociates elements from the environment, creating an oscillating view of the natural and the fabricated.
Stephen Magsig
Working with images he personally photographs, Magsig looks for crucial details in both the highlights and the shadows, in the brightness and obscurity of each scene. The artist says, "I get caught up in the mix of organic and non-organic human signs: the color of loaves of bread in an Italian bakery window, the reflections of facades in the car’s windshield, the abstracted angles of cornices and architectural detail." New Yorkers will recognize many of the scenes Magsig paints, yet the universal appeal is the atmosphere and mood which attracts those for whom the images hold no personal significance. The painterly quality of the work provides enough photo-like detail to "slow people down to look and wonder about the scene." The artist creates work that depicts New York City as a dynamic metropolis -- although his images are devoid of people. The appreciation Magsig holds for the subjects he paints allows him to create beauty in streets that may escape even those of us who live there.
Bennett Vadnais
Bennett Vadnais’ newest work is created from intimate and humble architectural subjects around his neighborhood and home in Baltimore city. The pictures arise from direct observation of the locations that he records via numerous sketches, drawings and colors studies. Referring to them in his studio, Vadnais turns them into pictures through a lengthy process of reflection and distillation. He draws heavily on traditional methods of painting while employing modern materials such as acrylic paint and durable aluminum composite panels. The finished pictures have a complex balance of observed facts, memory and invention. Through these modest structures with their subtle play of light and texture, he finds magic in the mundane.
