John McAllister: shining serenest-like wilds whirl

MASSIMODECARLO is delighted to present John McAllister’s exhibition shining serenest-like wilds whirl, a series of paintings of landscapes under different conditions. McAllister creates landscapes through intuitive explorations within nature, using the enigmatic play of light and colour to conjure up scenes of beauty and emotional resonance that focus on the phenomenological elements of nature rather than the illustrative. Many of the works in this exhibition were conceived in pairs, showing the same landscape both in bloom and alive with fire. The exhibition itself is also divided in two, presented as a paired exhibition across two of our gallery spaces at MASSIMODECARLO Hong Kong and MASSIMODECARLO Beijing. The two types of landscape in shining serenest-like wilds whirl present nature in moments of transition, both accentuated by human beings’ persistent desire to create an ideal landscape and impose their ingenuity upon it. McAllister’s arcadian landscapes hint at human interference as plants with far-flung origins intermingle with native species, while their counterpart infernos show how nature can react when our efforts to mould it are pushed too far.