Lee Saloutos’s landscape, interior, and close-up surface images are highly detailed and richly atmospheric. These are works that transport the viewer to locations that, while usually unidentified, evoke nonetheless the unending action of the elements and the inexorable passage of time. Even more than this, they hint at a narrative of national decline, the gradual weathering of man-made structures and forms seeming to resonate with the collapse of manufacturing industry. In choosing his subjects, Saloutos also offers a commentary on the state of the nation, linking abstract tone and texture to narratives of social and economic dissolution. Opening at the Hardin Cultural Arts Center, Gadsden AL on July 13 – August 31, 2021