Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

Wendy Cross

Wendy Cross was in grad school in 1988 when she began painting the foreclosed farms of Ohio. When she returned to her home state of Connecticut in 2006, she was struck by the shuttering of factory towns. In her show “Not a Pretty Picture: America in the 21st Century” at Brattleboro’s Gallery in the Woods, Cross presents a society lost in the chaos between the past and future. Dilapidated warehouses seem to be sinking into the earth; drone aircraft penetrate polluted skies; and Americans circle a towering cross in desperate prayer. Through February 26. Pictured: “Topped Trees.”