Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art (PSCA) announces the opening of two exhibits, I Love These People In My Garden, featuring acrylic and photo paintings on paper by Austrian artist Anton Christian, and Can Cri Woodcuts, featuring woodcut prints collaged on paper by New York artist Gloria Garfinkel.
"I Love These People In My Garden" Anton Christian
"Can Cri Woodcuts" Gloria Garfinkel
New York, NY - Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art (PSCA) announces the opening of two
exhibits, I Love These People In My Garden, featuring acrylic and photo
paintings on paper by Austrian artist Anton Christian, and Can Cri Woodcuts,
featuring woodcut prints collaged on paper by New York artist Gloria Garfinkel.
Opening March 5, 6 - 9 PM, thru April 2.
In pairing these two well-established artists, PSCA is presenting the highest
quality artworks from two mature artists who recently have had solo shows in
museum venues. Christian had a major retrospective at the Tyroler State Museum
in Austria in 2000 and Garfinkel had a solo exhibit at the Ulrich Museum in
Kansas this past summer.
Christian brings his lively humor to this new series of work, created especially
for this show in New York City. His expressionistic style reverberates with
color and imagery to create a visual intensity rarely found in paintings today.
Compositions are full of juxtapositions and challenge the viewer. Recurring
themes in Christian's work throughout his career include escapism, memory, the
impact of current political affairs, and personal and family experiences. Often
in his work, polar elements are represented as diametric states of being. His
concern is in the human condition and he often depicts the paradox of nature
with the paradox of mortal life. In these paintings, beautiful images of
flowers are juxtaposed with heads and other human forms, depicting the human
relationship to both nature and to self in terms of searching, experiencing, and
even hiding. Christian has exhibited his work and has been published since the
early 1960s. This internationally renowned artist is well understood in Europe,
but is not as well known in New York. This exhibit presents 10 new works.
Christian premiered a series of a dozen works, based on the photography of Roman
Vishniac, at PSCA in 2001 which subsequently travelled to Galerie Thoman in
Innsbruck.
Garfinkel took inspiration from the discovery of Can Cri (or Cancri), a new
extrasolar system in the Cancer constellation, 41 light years from New York.
Garfinkel routinely searches to far off places for inspiration in her work,
whether it be persons of importance from her past (a new series of "portrait"
paintings - large, abstract, intensely personal canvasses), or from Japan and
China. This past fall, the Ulrich Museum presented 10 works from her Obi series
and published a full-color brochure with text by David Butler. The works she
presents in this exhibit at PSCA are both playful and whimsical, and suggest
beautiful sculptural volumes. She first pulls woodcut prints and then uses
these as elements for the final collage, cutting the woodblock prints and
rearranging elements into a unique new work. Due to the original inspiration
for these works, they posses a playfull quality, perhaps George Jetson or
Spacely Sprockets would be collectors. Butler's commentary on Garfinkel's work
applies to the spirit of these new pieces when he refers to the interplay
between shape, color, and pattern in Garfinkel's work; "the overall effect is
one of an exquisitely calibrated, harmonious order. Matisse himself could
hardly have done better."
Following this exhibit, PSCA will present Robinson Murray: Paintings from the
Estate, and John Costa Rosis: New Works, opening April 9, 6 - 9 PM.
Openinig 5 march 6 - 9 PM
ADMISSION Free
RSVP 646 613 1252
The gallery is open on Wednesday through Saturday from Noon to 6 PM, and by
appointment.
Image from the exhibit "I LOVE THESE PEOPLE IN MY GARDEN": ANTON CHRISTIAN Dutch Visitors, 2003, Acrylic and Photo on Paper, 37.4 x 24.8 inches
ANTON CHRISTIAN
Born 1940 Innsbruck Austria
GLORIA GARFINKEL
Born 1929 in New York, NY
Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art
86 Walker Street, Floor Six, New York, NY 10013
(Walker is one block below Canal Street, between
Broadway and Lafayette)
646 613 1252