Middlebrook has long explored man’s complex relationship with nature by painting bright abstractions across the surface of cut planks and slices of indigenous hardwoods.  Sourced locally to his home in upstate New York, timber is cut into lengths and slices left raw to highlight the organic quality of the material. The wooden canvases once had a life of their own as evidenced by the many rings of “compressed energy” radiating across the surface.

 

Middlebrook pays deference to this record of history by laying a skin of brightly colored lines and shapes, a final layer of life celebrated by human intervention. Raw edges, whorls, and burls exaggerate the exacting geometry in his abstraction. Kaleidoscopic repetitive sequences guide the eye in and out of the grain, complementing the work nature already produced instead of obscuring it. Reminiscent of geodes or geological cross-sections, these works speak to a higher sublime quality of man’s interaction with all nature—its presence before man and our brief visitation in its space.