"ART IS A CHESS GAME OF FORM AND STORY WAGED ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE AESTHETIC AND SYMBOLIC RECTANGLE."
―JEF7REY HILDNER | HENRY TRUCKS ― PAINTER

Self-taught painter Jef7rey Hildner, aka Henry Trucks, draws on his inspiration as an architect to explore the theme of the rectangle, simultaneously aesthetic and symbolic. He invites viewers to explore the open-ended meaning of his semi-abstract pictures by seeing them as both maps and windows: panoramic landscapes you could either snapshot from an airplane or view from your porch looking toward the horizon. His paintings depict site plans and facades —open spaces and walls.

The Architect Painter presents not only a highly developed aesthetic language, which he applies to his buildings. Through the asymmetric layering of lines and planes, positive figures and negative spaces—through devices of color, texture, and collage—he also evokes the spirit of ancient myths: a symbolic dimension that infuses his architecture.

Blending the full range of nine signature concepts outlined in his book Daedalus 9, including Control and Soul, Pretty and Gritty, Jigsaw Design, Negative Cubism, and Empty Space  |  Full Space, the artist explores what he calls the “Visual Chess Game of Move and Meaning”—the basis for an architecture of Form and Story that he has so far most fully realized in his award-winning project, Dante|Telescope House.

This large-format hardcover edition, printed on archival paper, features high-resolution images of paintings produced from full-size digital captures.

Also featured: Hildner’s iconic essays "Significant Space" and "Move and Meaning," photographs of his architectural projects, and AI-generated images that underscore a distinctive source of inspiration: the myth of Daedalus—the legendary Greek architect who invented the Labyrinth and Wings.

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For my daughter, Emily—Soul visible