Pilot and photographer Alex MacLean has flown his plane over much of the United States documenting the landscape. Trained as an architect, he has portrayed the history and evolution of the land from vast agricultural patterns to city grids, recording changes brought about by human intervention and natural processes. His powerful and descriptive images provide clues to understanding the relationship between the natural and constructed environments. MacLean’s photographs have been exhibited widely in the United Sates, Canada, Europe, and Asia and are found in private, public, and university collections.

He has won numerous awards, including the American Academy of Rome’s Prix de Rome in Landscape Architecture for 2003-2004 and grants from foundations such as the National Endowment for the Arts and Graham Foundation. MacLean is the author of seven books including: Visualizing Density (2007), The Playbook (2006), Designs on the Land: Exploring America from the Air (2003), Taking Measures Across the American Landscape (1996) and Look at the Land: Aerial Reflections of America (1993) and Above and Beyond: Visualizing Change in Small Towns and Rural Areas (2002). MacLean maintains a studio in Cambridge and lives in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

Artist Statement: On the temporary surface of black ice, motorcycle racers leave a swirl of white ice chips that mark an oval race track. A few racers have spun off the track leaving their own free formed tracks on the edge. Photographs can be metaphorical; here there is the underlying suggestion that there is tendency and room for free sprits to deviate from the beaten path.