"Pure, austere geometry dissolves in palpable brushstrokes and slight, sloping asymmetry. And color. Canary yellow on a buttery ground, sun-warmed ivory against muddied gold. Innumerable shades of blue, each electric, each emitting its own charge. But just as geometry, here, is imperfect, these forms are not truly monochromatic. Underpaintings in altogether different hues appear in glimpses-in the rifts between strokes, behind thin washes of oil, or revealed through careful scoring."
"This micro-neighborhood is home to the flagship Shake Shack (the people's Tavern on the Green) and the Flatiron building, perennially shrouded in scaffolding. But framed by Sykes' window is another architectural marvel, the glitter of its gilded, pyramidal roof ricocheting off its surroundings. Built in 1927-28, the New York Life building was a Gothic Revival aberration in a skyline newly blooming with Art Deco cloud-grazers."
Maxwell Sykes presents oil-on-canvas paintings that distill and reassemble architectural views into austere, imperfect geometric forms. Rectangular planes, triangles, stacked bands, and cleaved lines converge and multiply, producing sloping asymmetry and palpable brushwork. A vivid palette — canary yellow, sun-warmed ivory, muddied gold, and myriad electric blues — coexists with revealed underpaintings and scored surfaces. The works originated from a window view of the New York Life building, whose gilded pyramidal roof and Gothic Revival presence inform fragmented, memory-inflected compositions. The selection on view at 48 Ludlow Street runs from September 3 through October 11, 2025.
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