ALEX ZWARENSTEIN
	FOREWORD When Alex Zwarenstein decided to include both New York cityscapes and English townscapes in his latest exhibition it was not with the intent of contrasting and comparing the two distinctly different locales...that being said, one cannot help but explore the two subjects with that design in mind. Upon experiencing his paintings, it becomes immediately clear that this is an artist who is not drawn to that which is new or constructed with functional single-mindedness. Beyond recognizing the nature of the accomplishment, it is perhaps fair to say he would be as disinterested in a sleek structure of glass and steel as he would be in a painting whose surface is as smooth as a Dutch master. What inspires Alex Zwarenstein is eccentricity. He is equally fascinated with exploring uniqueness on a grand scale, as he is in uncovering it in the smallest of details. Most intriguing are those idiosyncrasies, which exist in direct correlation to the impact of man's presence on the landscape over an expanse of time. Zwarenstein paints the human scale in architecture, implying the unique evolution of a neighborhood in all its individuality. He strives to layer into each work the lives lived and the incarnations each building has experienced over the years. Within one locale he may incorporate decades of transformation, perhaps that of an idyllic seaside resort into a working class neighborhood or of a 19th century factory turned into 21st century fashionable lofts. This "psychology of place" is what is most unique to each subject and what at heart relates them all, one to the other. His approach in painting these vastly different settings however, is almost in direct opposition. Alex Zwarenstein's New York is like a cross-section of a living organism, allowing us to examine angles and perspectives otherwise obscured. Above the rooflines, his city is peopled with water towers standing sentry to the passage of time. We rarely see the buildings from our normal street-level perspective. We are raised to varying heights to be eye-level with a sea of windows staring unblinkingly back at us. In this artist's metropolis, we are impacted in a very singular way by the mass, grandeur and age of her buildings and the humanity that has occupied them. If we find ourselves in the middle of the city, Zwarenstein places us just outside the rural towns of England, as if we were visitors seeing it for the first time. Here there is a sense of an expansion to the landscape. Country roads meander, which after winding through the village, will reach beyond its borders to connect to another town. The artist supplies us with a panoramic perspective that he explores to its fullest in exaggerated horizontal formats. Now, we can better see the eccentric and asymmetrical design of buildings, which most assuredly occurred through the happenstance of its inhabitants, rather than by plan. In both these settings - city and country - Zwarenstein reveals the varied patinas of brick and mortar, copper and steel, as if he has lifted a veil that has hidden these riches from view. The surface of his paintings reflects the grit and reality of something or somewhere aged and used. We sense he is enamored with these places because of their eccentricities and even their anomalies, for those are qualities, which best express the presence of the people who have passed their way.
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