Madeleine Bialke
Murder in the Adirondacks
December 19 - January 11, 2020
Chashama Space to Present
21 Greenwich Ave, New York, NY 10014

Deanna Evans Projects is pleased to present Murder in the Adirondacks, a solo exhibition by Madeleine Bialke. At the turn of the century, a man murdered a woman on a secluded lake in the northern wild. Sensationalized, the story swept the nation and became an American tragedy, due to the sublime setting and a rags-to-riches origin story that turned into horror.  

In these paintings, this murderer is all-pervasive and bodiless. The crime stemmed from actions and decisions committed long ago that have current and future ramifications. These fragile figures navigate an altered landscape, haunted by saturated sunsets and looming pines. Nature, here, is performative, simplified and unbalanced. 

In this depiction, light sources are evasive and shifting. Color is not perceptive, more used to indicate temperature and felt emotion.  The trees are reduced to lozenge-shaped forms both comic and noble, almost human. The animals wandering this second nature are lifted from John James Audubon plates, now uncanny and radioactive.

And yet, this Adirondack lake isn’t always eerie, it is also a place to house survivors. Old trees, many the last of their size and age, scrape the skies at 130ft. The Algonquin red wolf-- now extinct-- lives on in the DNA of eastern coyotes. Life, infinitely clever, finds a way. Bodies and trees find tenderness in the midst of an invisible turmoil. 

Madeleine Bialke lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from Boston University in 2016 and BFA from SUNY Plattsburgh in 2013. Solo and group exhibitions include Harper’s Books, East Hampton, NY; Asya Geisberg Gallery, New York, NY; Greene House Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York, NY; Northwestern Oklahoma State University, Alva, OK; Able Baker Contemporary, Portland, ME.

To inquire about the availability of any of these works please email info@deannaevansprojects.com.