Corridor Gallery
Brooklyn, New York

In an age when so-called leaders unfathomably deny the unconscionable destruction of the earth and its bounty, Edward Burtynsky’s photographs of human devastated landscapes captured from the air is profoundly important work.  Burtynsky says it well: “[We] come from nature.…There is an importance to [having] a certain reverence for what nature is because we are connected to it… If we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves.”  Valerie Hegarty, informed by the current turbulent state of our country while also excavating from America’s past, presents recent ceramic work exploring the erosion of our values right along with our natural resources. The lush floral paintings of Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez take a bit of detective work to really catch the nuanced concept. By magnifying images of Colonial still lifes, she lures us into the lush and lovely decorative elements.  But look again, and you will notice in the background that a flood drifts by, exposing neglect and indulgence.