Boston−based artist explores the city and its dynamic forms

Landscape is a staple of nature, an omnipresent aesthetic. Place is something we rarely consider in the moment, but it is all around us. Matt Hosey's works are snippets of a feeling, of an interaction with the urban landscape.

Hosey's nine works hang on the white walls of the newly built Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library. The library, a vision of cleanliness and order, sits on a street lined with parking lots and well−worn buildings. All around it, life rattles on, but inside, all is calm and still.

The most striking piece upon entering the gallery is a triplet of giant splinter−shaped forms, varnished with a thick gloss, hanging over the elevator entryway. It was not until I saw the rest of the show — with almost all of the other pieces at eye level — that this struck me as significant: the three forms are a skyline, or at least convey the sense of a skyline.

The bulk of the show is located on the second floor, weaving around bookshelves, computers and desks. Throughout all of Hosey's works are sculptural forms that question the format of conventional paintings, exploding them into the three−dimensional. There are angular cutouts, jetties and inlays. Pieces jut out of the wall and in onto themselves.

Because the primary material of construction used is plywood, there is something hardy and imposing about this presentation. Sawed, gauged, shellacked and sanded, the planes of textured wood intersect and diverge in compelling ways. The question of which is the front of the painting and which is the back is not an easy one to answer. In fact, answers are precisely what Hosey is not offering the viewer. Hosey is offering his way of moving through the city.

The landscape addressed here is not that of domineering skyscrapers and multitudinous office buildings. It's the landscape of walking around, of riding the T every day to work or of growing up in a topography shaped by bulldozers and wrecking balls.

The processes of demolition and renovation specifically inspire Hosey. To accomplish this aesthetically, he uses only materials found in hardware stores. All of his tools are the technical tools of builders, architects and handymen.

The mechanical precision of the angles contrasts with the delicate attention to finish. Glosses and stains break up the dominating presence of wood. Finished edges and buffed surfaces give the tread−marked and scarred wood façades a feel of intention and care.

This focus on tools contrasts with but also draws inspiration from Hosey's undergraduate experience. Hosey told the Daily that he studied photography as an undergraduate, but going into graduate school, he wanted to do something more hands−on.

Hosey doesn't take pictures of his inspiration anymore. He just sees something — electrical wiring, roof lines, filled−in holes in the sidewalk and street — and he carries that feeling back to the studio with him. It's not about recreating the shape that so fascinates him; it's about recreating the feeling.

Hosey started out creating little wooden squares inspired by the shapes he saw in his daily life, and from there, these new, far more dynamic pieces evolved.

Generating emotion from texture is a nuanced problem. In one piece, thickly caked paint is sandwiched between two boards, which are then pulled apart and anchored together in an open "V" shape. The paint pulled and stretched as the boards separated, leaving behind fields of little craters.

Another work leans against the wall and, when viewed from the front, looks simply like a single red panel. It is only as you move around it to step back into the elevator that you notice the second and third panels, hidden from the front. Taken together, these panels form a cave, like an alley.

The art only becomes more relevant as you move through the city and head back to Tufts. Shapes and intersections you wouldn't normally notice seem glaring and obvious. It is truly a more active way to experience Boston.