Artist Donald Bracken’s layers of representation

CORNWALL — Artist Don Bracken’s work explores the relationship between nature and a changing world, drawing inspiration from the forests where he grew up and the environmental and social shifts he observes today.

His exhibition, Points of View: Landscapes by Don Bracken, is on display at the Cornwall Library through April 23.

Standing before a large forest scene rendered with cracked polymer clay, Bracken explained that the piece, titled White Dawn, reflects his reaction to the political climate when Donald Trump became president.

“[It] is partly about when Trump became president. That’s why it’s White Dawn, it’s like everything is going to change. He’s such an anti-environmentalist and I wanted to do a picture that appears bucolic, that is like our reality being fractured,” Bracken said.

In the beauty of his forest scenes, these concerns might not at first be apparent without the counterpoint of an explanation.

“I tend to be pretty political in general. I try to be subtle about it,” he said.

“I was an artist in residence in the World Trade Center in ‘97,” which, Bracken says, has informed his work since then.

“I wanted to do something for the 10-year anniversary,” of the Sept. 11 attack, “and I started using clay. I was doing these giant wall pieces on panels that were the size of the windows in the World Trade Center.”

They were displayed in the New York State Museum in Albany. For the 20th anniversary he and another artist curated a show in a 10,000 square foot space on the 91st floor of the new World Trade Center.

Bracken has been awarded many residencies and grants. His work has been exhibited in museums that include the Mattatuck, Katonah, and New Britain Museums.

Bracken’s colored canvases, too, are subtle: tonally rich, bright paintings suggesting delicate, ephemeral beauty, a quality shared with his work in earth tones using natural materials that change, like the clay cracking. He also works with large, swirling strokes, in three dimensions: “I do a lot of massive sculptures. I have a 15 x 15 foot installation in my studio made of vines and branches. I love sculpture.”