Cove Gallery

Joe Landry

Joe Landry’s painstaking creative process combines the deft use of technologies old and new. He begins by creating drawings and photographs of buildings that have significant autobiographic relevance to him. These images are then translated into precise plans in computer software that guide him as he builds each sculpture with basswood, epoxy, paint, and found objects. The resulting art works are breathtaking in their extreme realism, and Landry’s precision is accompanied by a simultaneous aesthetic formal virtuosity of color and composition. These sculptures, though, are much more than gee-whiz wonders of technique. Landry’s little buildings are unsettling, surprising, and magical. They express longing for the past, and the sad sort of nostalgia evoked by ruins. They are also suffused with the artist’s wry wit. Many of them, seen together, create a city of dreams that we might either recall or desire. Nick Capasso Director, Fitchburg Art Museum