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Gowanus revisited during Covid: Recent work by Derek Buckner to open at High Line Gallery

April 19, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle Staff
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Brooklyn native son and noted artist Derek Buckner has been fascinated with the industrial waterfront since he was old enough to ride a bike there from the brownstone neighborhood where he grew up. His latest works focusing on the Gowanus Canal and environs will be exhibited at a gallery space at High Line Nine, sponsored by the noted George Billis Gallery.

Located in Chelsea, the High Line Nine is at 507 W. 27th St. in Manhattan. Buckner will attend an opening reception on May 5 at 6 p.m.

Throughout his career as a painter, Buckner has explored many different themes in his work but has always found himself returning to the urban landscape. He has drawn and painted the Gowanus Canal and its surrounding areas for the past twenty-five years, and as the area has developed and changed, so has his work.

Derek Buckner, Cement Truck, Gowanus Canal, oil on linen, 24″x36”

This new series — created during the pandemic — continues to focus on the industrial areas of the Gowanus, but as the global climate crisis intensifies, his paintings are also informed by more overt anxiety: What does it mean to bear witness to a rapidly changing landscape? Buckner’s personal and artistic investment in this shifting industrial neighborhood explores the relationship between destruction and growth, strength and impermanence.

(Readers are invited to read a 2020 Eagle Q&A interview with Buckner, here.)

Painter and Brooklyn native Derek Buckner, pictured with one of his paintings on display at the George Billis Gallery. Photo courtesy of Derek Buckner.

The George Billis Gallery was located in Manhattan in the Chelsea Art District for 25 years, and relocated to Westport, Connecticut, due to the pandemic. George Billis Gallery opened its second location in the Culver City Art District in Los Angeles in 2004.  Closer to home , the gallery is pleased to showcase Derek Buckner’s paintings at High Line Nine, 507 West 27 Street at 10th Avenue in Chelsea.

For additional information or high resolution images, please visit the gallery’s website at GeorgeBillis.com or contact the gallery at [email protected] or 212.645.2621

Derek Buckner, Construction Site, Tires, oil on linen, 40×60”

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