A forest of large painted and individually collaged prisms is hanging throughout ArtWorks in Trenton in a massive interactive installation that is the centerpiece of a one man show of work by the abstract painter Alan S. Goldstein.

Mr. Goldstein, who was born in the Bronx in 1938, has based much of his life’s work on nature’s inventions and processes. This show relates to the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water and will be on display through June 14.

The forest installation was inspired by trees familiar to the artist from over three decades of walking to his Bucks County studio. “My trees are part of my life and I see them age and die like my friends, like myself,” said the artist. “Slowly they loose twigs, branches, leaves, and bark until they stand like ghosts waiting to fall.”

Having spent most of the 1960s in New York and New Jersey, teaching and exhibiting, the artist moved his home and studio to Bucks County in 1970. He taught drawing and painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and was head of drawing and painting at Bucks County Community College, from which he retired as a professor emeritus in 2003.

After initially studying architecture, Mr. Goldstein became interested in stage design, and subsequently in sculpture and painting. Of his work, he has said: “I seek the core of things, of the universe, of myself.” He has described art as “an activity of the mind and spirit as well as the hand” and his subject as “the nature of nature.”

He works predominantly with paint, ink, and mixed media and has experimented with tar, rope, steel, and fabric.

His work is represented in over 70 private collections in the United States and abroad, and he has exhibited in many prestigious venues.

Over the years his work has been exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Rosenfeld Gallery, Arch Street Gallery, and the LG Tripp Gallery in Philadelphia. In New Jersey, his work has been on display at the Bristol-Myers Squibb Gallery in Lawrenceville, the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, in the Newark Museum, and at Fairleigh Dickenson University.

His work is collected by and has been exhibited at the James A. Michener Art Museum, for which he has often served as guest curator and lecturer. It can also be seen at the Doylestown Health and Wellness Center and frequently at the River Run Gallery in Lambertville.

“Earth, Air, Fire, Water,” works by Alan Goldstein will be at ArtWorks, 19 Everett Alley in Trenton through June 14. For more information, contact info@artworkstrenton.org or (609) 394-943. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more on the artist, visit: www.AlanGoldstein.net.

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