Glow, 2015
22 × 13 inches
Acrylic and silkscreen on maple

MASS MoCA audiences delighted in the artist’s stunning painted hardwood planks in Jason Middlebrook: My Landscape, in 2014. For nearly two decades, the mixed-media artist has explored the complex relationship between man and nature — from the taming of the suburban yard to the building of the Alaskan Pipeline — in his sculptures, installations, paintings, and large-scale drawings. He began working with the planks — maple, cherry, myrtle, birch, and others — in 2008 after relocating from New York City to Hudson, New York. A meditation on sculptural form and abstract painting, the hybrid paintings work both with and against the grain of their organically shaped wooden supports. With his intricate, dynamic designs, the artist points to abstraction’s roots in the natural world while emphasizing a desire to control and even oppose natural form with his use of hard-edged lines and glossy, industrial color (which make a nod to the artist’s California surfing days and the glossy works of West Coast artists like John McCracken).

It’s no surprise, says The Boston Globe, that he has a thriving international career: “his work is beautiful… human-scale, beautifully finessed, three-dimensional objects that sit on the floor or confidently ride the wall.” With work in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and MCA, Chicago; Middlebrook has exhibited at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; the New Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, among many others. His MTA commission, Brooklyn Seeds, was named one of the Best Public Artworks in the United States.

Courtesy of artist and Gallery 16, San Francisco

Estimated value: $12,000

The October 25 live auction will be conducted by Eric Widing, Deputy Chairman, Christie’s Americas. To place an absentee bid, fill out this form, and email it to Rebecca Wehry at rwehry@massmoca.org by 10am on October 25.