Alex Callender

"Now, at the rising of Venus-the steady star

that survives translation, if one can call this lamp

the planet that pierces us over indigo islands-

despite the critical sand flies, I accept my function

as a colonial upstart at the end of empire,

a single, circling, homeless satellite."

—Derek Walcott, North and South, 1981

Island is pleased to present Night Grass, Alex Callender’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.

In these works, narrative acts like a set of spectral encounters. Botanical renderings, pages from merchant ledger books, and industrial agriculture, draw water lines from one space to the other, sometimes interrupted by the presence of figures. In these works, social and ecological histories become unsettled and intertwined, seen as fragments of landscapes at night. Exploring the connections between colonialism, plant migration, and American economic history, wild grasses and their industrialized counterparts; which in the case of Saccharum Officinarum (sugar), became a main grass of plantation economy and empire. Frequently drought resistant and integral to pollination and soil restoration, grasses tell a necessary story about our future and ecological transformation away from industrial lawn grasses and monoculture. But they also tell another story: we live between the haunted waterlines of the Atlantic world, a place where the ongoing legacies of colonial land management systems are still, nonetheless a part of our shared landscapes.

Alex Callender’s practice uses methods of drawing, painting, and installation to trace and remap historical materials as a means to explore with both criticality and care, how we might disentangle the interwoven relations of race, gender, and capitalism. Callender has had solo exhibitions and projects at the Center for the Arts Northeastern University, UMass Contemporary Museum of Art, NYU Gallatin Galleries, the Rubber Factory (NY), and Michigan State University’s LookOut Gallery. Alex has received artist grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council and has held artist residencies with MacDowell Colony, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Drawing Center’s Open Session program, Art in Embassies Program, The Vermont Studio Center, the Santa Fe Art Institute, Alice Yard in Trinidad, and Draw International and The BAU Institute in France. Callender is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Smith College.