ALAN GAYNOR

OUR CITY

February 17–March 7, 2026

OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, February 19, 2026 | 6–8 PM

CLOSING RECEPTION: Saturday, March 7, 2026 | 6–8 PM

Viridian Artists is pleased to announce OUR CITY, a photography exhibition by architect and photographer ALAN GAYNOR, featuring powerful, intimate perspectives of New York City’s architecture. This is Gaynor’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery. The show will be on view from February 17 through March 7, 2026, with an Opening Reception on Thursday, February 19, from 6–8 PM, and a Closing Reception on Saturday, March 7, from 4–6 PM.

OUR CITY represents another chapter in Alan Gaynor’s ongoing exploration of the built environment, inviting viewers to experience Manhattan’s architecture not as scenery, but as a commanding and evocative presence. In his Cityscapes series, he photographs the city’s skyscrapers as layered structures of concrete, steel, and glass, rendered with exceptional precision and scale. Stripped of human inhabitants, these colossal constructions emerge as subject and musical reference, transforming the frenetic heartbeat of the metropolis into a powerful stillness.

Gaynor’s work as an architect and the founding of his own firm in 1974 provided the foundation for his art practice, allowing him to extend his design sensibility into photographic inquiry. His images convey New York City’s monumental presence while exploring a quasi-abstract compositional quality. Photographed from above, below, or straight on, sometimes with the aid of a drone, his works reveal angles and vistas, usually goes unnoticed. The resulting images envelop the viewer in dramatic panoramas that shift between immersive and intimate perspectives. The eye travels across gridded facades, perceiving duration in their immovability. Often, his photography captures reflections of neighboring high-rise edifices in the windows, reinforcing the overwhelming scale and striking stature of these buildings.

Working in both black-and-white and color, Gaynor approaches his practice with unembellished observation and minimal manipulation. He employs top-tier analog and digital tools to achieve exceptional detail, sharpness, and control. His photography is straightforward, yet his images function as symbols of both contemporary life and the classical need for order. While they may appear as objective, detailed records of the city’s towers, the compositions reveal patterns, rhythms, and reflections that elevate each photograph into a study of scale, form, and line.

As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe famously observed, “architecture is frozen music,” and Gaynor’s photographs bring this idea to life. To him, it is not the individual building, but the layering and interconnection of these massive structures that most resemble a musical composition. In his work, the pictorial space unfolds like a minimalist, ambient musical score, symphonic in bearing and harmonic in effect, paused, and ready to be played.

Alan Gaynor has been exhibiting his photography since 2000. He studied with renowned photographers including Ansel Adams’ chief assistant, John Sexton, George Tice, Jock Sturges, and David Vestal. His work has been widely shown at galleries such as Limner Gallery, The Space Gallery, Soho Photo, SE Center for Photography, Garrison Art Center, Black Box Gallery, ADC Gallery, Camera Obscura, and others. Gaynor has received numerous awards, including a Bronze Award in the 2012 International Loupe Awards, as well as honors from Terabella Media Urban Landscape, Epson International, and the Tank Photo Award. His photographs have appeared in publications including Brooklyn Rail, Gallery & Studio, Shadow & Light Magazine, Photographers Forum, The Photo Paper, and others.

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