HALSEY MCKAY GALLERY

Never paint a wooden ladder – the paint may hide imperfections such as deterioration or cracks. While detrimental to a ladder, Henry Glavin exploits exactly these types of patinas in his newest paintings of rural architectural spaces. He creates unique surfaces that engage with the act of painting as much as with imagery. He moves between graphic silhouettes, ink washes, and impasto brushstrokes, creating a range of visual realization that plies the elastic perception of memory. Glavin depicts sheds, barns, ladders, and other familiar objects in personal spaces such as his mother’s garden shed, his grandmother’s ceramic studio, and the attic ladder outside his childhood bedroom. Devoid of human presence, his deft compositions are occupied with rich atmospheres that float in and out of clear spacial logic and depiction. Poetically specific objects such as a half painted barn, a door off its hinges, and a curtain loosely knotted at bottom, hint at the psychology of figures out of frame.