HALSEY MCKAY GALLERY

Halsey McKay is thrilled to present Lowlands, Alexander Russi’s first solo show with the gallery, on view September 13 through October 21 at HMGP, 60 Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn. Russi sources imagery from the landscapes that have shaped his biography. From Glenwood Canyon in Colorado, to the Brooklyn garden behind his home studio, and the Hoosac Range in western Massachusetts, these environments embedded in the broader American landscape are decidedly marked by human intervention.

Russi considers observation an intentional act and Lowlands is a meditation on how landscapes shape, and are shaped by time, perspective and ways of seeing. While maintaining his Brooklyn garden, he observes natural cycles and changing forms with an awareness of their ephemerality and futility. These works reflect the growth and morphing of the garden, and celebrate a passage of time within an evolving and intimate landscape bound by urban constructs. In ‘Landscape at Mt. Cuba Center’, a woodland garden in the Brandywine Valley of Delaware reveals a fleeting moment of intense afternoon light that filters through a canopy of Beech trees and illuminates the understory meadow. In ‘Hoosac Tunnel, Eastern Portal’, the Hoosac Tunnel cuts through the base of a mountain and recedes into a dark abyss. The 5-mile long tunnel was completed in 1877, the year stamped on the entrance to the portal, and serves as a historical reminder of the Berkshires’ industrial past.