For more than forty years, John Van Alstine has created abstract sculptures forged with stone and steel. At their essence, they explore natural forces and man-made elements, conveying the American experience as the confluence/conflict between wilderness and industrialization.

Van Alstine’s sculpture adds to this epic dialogue by keenly expanding on the 19th century narrative, while injecting 20th century ideas of abstraction, constructivism, cubism, assemblage, collage, and found objects as a standard-bearer of the modernist tradition. By grappling with the inherent divergent qualities of stone and steel, the sculptures seek a balance; they are measured and calculated, but, at the same time, provide a sense of narrative, even the poetic, with swooping angular lines creating expansive space beyond their frames, suggesting much more than mere abstraction.