Caleb De Jong reviews an exhibition of new paintings by Rackstraw Downes at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, on view through November 24, 2012.

De Jong writes that "each picture in this exhibition searches for a moment of stillness, the moment when all traces of the human presence vanishes. Downes process, hours spent minutely detailing the industrial remnants of our civilization, becomes long distance visualisations of the world without us. Given that Downes paints each painting on site, over many hours and days, the nature of his subject matter would drift towards the monumental and unmoveable. Downes paintings, however, despite the grandeur of vista and mass of buildings, project a vulnerability, a sense of loss, a morning to what has been projected onto the landscape, and what the landscape is slowly reclaiming."