MELVILLE McLEAN Recent Photographs September 1 through October 2, 2004 Reception for the artist Thursday, September 9, 6 to 7:30 The gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of Melville McLean’s recent large-scale C-prints. The show will consist of 6 new photographs, each 40 x 50 inches. Selections from the show may be previewed at www.alexandregallery.com (upcoming). Melville McLean’s recent 40 x 50-inch photographs use an 8 x 10 view-camera’s film area to focus upon places close to home. The landscape of mid-coast Maine is his subject, but reverence for the interconnectedness of life is his content. Distinct natural environments are photographed at different times of day in each season. McLean intuitively searches for one particular, extraordinary and elusive moment to share with the viewer—the experience and awareness of “being there.” His distinctly painterly color compositions of natural environments are realistic—crisp, detailed and three-dimensional photographs that represent the nature about which he reads and studies. In each under- lying geometric structure and full-body scale offer abstract, color-field interactions within a dynamic, complex spatial order. Gail L. Scott writes on the occasion of this exhibition that McLean’s photographs are like “a gift of first sight …simultaneously conveying the grandeur and minutiae of nature.” Ken Johnson has described (2002) McLean’s clarity as “hallucinogenic” and the compositions as “supernaturally beautiful.” Mario Naves has written (2002), McLean’s work “requires us to fathom nature’s sweep in a way we’re not accustomed to—one bit at a time, all the time.” In 2003 McLean’s work was the subject of an exhibition at The University of Maine Museum of Art and at the Maine Center for Contemporary Art in a show titled Melville McLean: Northeast by Southwest. Concurrently on view at the gallery: Lois Dodd: Flashings September 1 through October 2 40 small oil paintings on metal. For further information or images please contact Ellen Robinson at 212.755.2828 or at ellen@alexandregallery.com. back