the world is big

Hollis Taggart is pleased to present the world is big and i want to have a good look at it before it gets dark, a three-person show of contemporary landscape painting. Featuring new work by Madeleine Bialke, Rachel MacFarlane, and Alexander Richard Wilson, the exhibition brings together a diverse group of artists who take unique approaches to depicting the current damaged landscape. Curated by Kara Spellman, Hollis Taggart’s Director of Research & Acquisitions, the exhibition brings contemporary depictions of the landscape into a gallery known for its role in preserving and promoting historic American landscape painting. the world is big… will be on view in Hollis Taggart’s annex space from September 12 through October 12, 2024, with an opening reception on Friday, September 13, from 6-8PM.

Taking its title from a quote by John Muir, the noted environmental preservationist who is considered the father of the U.S. National Park System, the exhibition continues Hollis Taggart’s rich history of presenting landscape painting. When the gallery opened over forty years ago, one of its core areas of expertise were the Hudson River School painters of the mid-nineteenth century, who created works that attempted to preserve their visions of the environment around them. In their paintings, they romanticized the changing landscape, which was being encroached upon by agricultural and industrial revolution. Almost two hundred years later, the painters in the world is big… face a very different world, in which the ecosystem stands at risk of collapse primarily due to man-made climate change and ecological destruction.

The three artists in the exhibition, all in their thirties, are based in very different parts of the world: Madeleine Bialke in London, England; Rachel MacFarlane in Queens, New York; and Alexander Richard Wilson in Denver, Colorado. Through illusion, metaphor, and color choice, they take unique approaches to depicting the damaged landscape while sharing an interest in capturing the psychological impact of our continued destruction of the natural world around us.

Madeleine Bialke’s environmental scenes border on the post-apocalyptic, with her unsettling use of colors and forms that straddle the line between the natural and artificial. Although Bialke depicts dire ecological devastation in her work, she also hopes the sublimity of her scenes might inspire hope and empathy for nature. Rachel MacFarlane’s eerie canvases capture landscapes on the precipice of change. While her paintings may seem fantastical, they are filtered through the artist’s memories of real places and time spent in unique geographical environments. Lamenting the loss of these places, MacFarlane depicts worlds in which humans are no longer the protagonists. Finally, Alexander Richard Wilson’s works explore the artist’s experience as a queer Black person inhabiting the American West, comparing the derogatory treatment of the Black body in the U.S. with that of the American environment. Using gestural brushstrokes and a muted color scheme, Wilson’s works challenge the romanticization of the American landscape.

About Madeleine Bialke

Bialke was born in 1991 in New York. She received her BFA in Studio Art from the Plattsburgh State University of New York and gained an MFA in Painting at Boston University, Massachusetts. Bialke was the artist-in-residence at the Nemeth Art Center, Park Rapids, Minnesota earlier this year. Bialke has had solo exhibitions internationally, mostly recently Giants in the Dusk, Huxley-Parlour, London; Death Motel, Newchild Gallery, Antwerp in 2022; Nine Lives, Steve Turner, Los Angeles in 2022; Long Summer, Huxley-Parlour, London in 2021; and Mothers & Daughters, Visions West Contemporary, Denver in 2020. Her work is included in the collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody, the X Museum, and Fundación MEDIANOCHE0. She lives and works in London.

About Rachel MacFarlane

MacFarlane was born in Scarborough, Ontario in 1986, and holds an M.F.A. from Rutgers University, B.F.A. from OCAD University, and Certificate of Advanced Visual Studies from OCADU Florence program. She is represented by Hollis Taggart and had her first solo show with the gallery, titled Coming Events Cast Their Light Before Them, in the spring of 2024. She has also had solo exhibitions at the MacLaren Art Centre, Ontario; Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto; Norberg Hall Gallery, Calgary; Mason Gross Gallery at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey; Howard Park Institute, Toronto; and Anna Leonowens Gallery at NSCAD University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has participated in group exhibitions across New York City, San Francisco, Florence, Quebec City, Halifax, Calgary, Toronto, and Philadelphia. She lives and works in Queens, New York City.

About Alexander Richard Wilson

Wilson was born in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1993. They studied at both the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Their work has been featured in many group exhibitions including Ways of Seeing at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama (2023) and Trail Song at the A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art in Colorado (2022). Earlier this year, they had a solo show at Housing Gallery in New York City. They have also had solo exhibitions at Dateline and Friend of a Friend in Denver, Colorado, where they live and work.

For more information about the world is big…, please contact us at info@hollistaggart.com or +1 212.628.4000.

For press inquiries, please contact Aga Sablinska at aga.sablinska@gmail.com or +1 862.216.6485.