Derek Buckner

May 3 - 21, 2022 | Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm or by appointment.

Opening Reception: Thursday, May 5th from 6-8:30 PM

George Billis Gallery presents a solo exhibit by Derek Buckner. Throughout his career as a painter, Derek Buckner has explored many different themes in his work but has always found himself returning to the urban landscape. Born and raised in Brooklyn, the artist 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.

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.

The George Billis Gallery was located in Manhattan in the Chelsea Art District for 25 years, and relocated to Westport, CT due to the pandemic. George Billis Gallery opened its second location in the Culver City Art District in Los Angeles in 2004.