Springtime at Pie Projects - Matthew McConville and Daniel Ballesteros

March 31 – April 24, 2021

This exhibition, presented by Richard Levy Gallery in Albuquerque, showcased gilded photographs of urban trees by Daniel Ballesteros and fantastical botanical paintings by Matthew McConville.

Matthew McConville paints exquisitely detailed arrangements of imagined plant life. Influenced by traditional practices such as 18th-century Dutch painting, botanical illustration, and Japanese flower arranging, as well as current topics relating to gene modification, sustainability, and extinction. These luminescent paintings are the artist’s interpretation of future worlds.

A third-generation Filipino-American, Daniel Ballesteros grew up in the Midwest and never felt like he fit in. Finding solace in nature, Ballesteros began photographing urban trees. In the Gold Leaf Trees series, Ballesteros masks all elements of nature and applies gold leaf to the rest of the image. Each image is produced in an edition of three, and because the gold leaf is applied by hand, each artwork is unique.

 Daniel Ballesteros, Gold Leaf Trees series