Pearlbrook Drive/ Link to review in Boston Globe July 2012
2012
oil on linen
24"x18"
Ellen Miller Gallery
38 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116
617-536-4650
Linda Gottesfeld: Pearlbrook Drive
June 15 - August 10, 2012
________________________
In December 2010, two good friends went on a road trip to Clifton, New Jersey. Jacki Lyden of National Public Radio (NPR) recalls how Linda Gottesfeld became inspired during their shared visit to the artist's hometown.
Linda's invitation was: let's go to my old hometown in NJ! My former neighbor's in her 90s and she's giving her old designer clothes away! Honestly, that's all it takes to hook me -- that and a chance to spend the day with my friend. But under those December skies, Route 9 as we left the city was absolutely cheerless: bollards this way and that, broken tarmac, orange barrier netting, big spews of mud. Gosh, I said. America looks more and more like a border outpost in Kazahkstan. There's nothing out here. Linda kept snapping her camera at the industrial sprawl, smitten. The aging ex-urb of Clifton. Smitten. The unprepossessing streets of old American '60s dream. Smitten. I thought she got nothing in her camera, but what she "got" is the world you see rendered before you here: a city laid bare to the bone. And me? Not even a frock!
In Linda Gottesfeld's words:
The New Jersey suburb paintings address the slippage between memories of a place, the place itself, and its photographic image. My work in landscape explores beauty in the mundane; in this series I am mining my reactions to revisiting a neighborhood that I had not seen in more than ten years. I begin by digitally altering my photographs with color and light filters, creating several versions. My color palettes recall M&M's, Necco Wafers, wet-Necco Wafers and Kodachrome, traversing familiar to extreme re-representation. The paintings range across my many 'takes' on this subject, from a candy-land pastel light to an off-register red-green washy surface. In my life I often turn thoughts and problems over in my head, obsessively looking at them every which way; my painting of these places is a lot like that. In this play of remembering, examining and altering, I excavate a range of perceptions, addressing each from slightly different points of view.
"Linda Gottesfeld: Pearlbrook Drive" on view at Ellen Miller Gallery from June 15 through August 3, 2012. The public is invited to the opening reception on Friday, June 15, 5-7 pm. reception on Friday, June 15, 5-7 pm.
Web: ellenmillergallery.com
Facebook: Ellen Miller Gallery
Email: ellen@ellenmillergallery.com
38 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116
617-536-4650
Linda Gottesfeld: Pearlbrook Drive
June 15 - August 10, 2012
________________________
In December 2010, two good friends went on a road trip to Clifton, New Jersey. Jacki Lyden of National Public Radio (NPR) recalls how Linda Gottesfeld became inspired during their shared visit to the artist's hometown.
Linda's invitation was: let's go to my old hometown in NJ! My former neighbor's in her 90s and she's giving her old designer clothes away! Honestly, that's all it takes to hook me -- that and a chance to spend the day with my friend. But under those December skies, Route 9 as we left the city was absolutely cheerless: bollards this way and that, broken tarmac, orange barrier netting, big spews of mud. Gosh, I said. America looks more and more like a border outpost in Kazahkstan. There's nothing out here. Linda kept snapping her camera at the industrial sprawl, smitten. The aging ex-urb of Clifton. Smitten. The unprepossessing streets of old American '60s dream. Smitten. I thought she got nothing in her camera, but what she "got" is the world you see rendered before you here: a city laid bare to the bone. And me? Not even a frock!
In Linda Gottesfeld's words:
The New Jersey suburb paintings address the slippage between memories of a place, the place itself, and its photographic image. My work in landscape explores beauty in the mundane; in this series I am mining my reactions to revisiting a neighborhood that I had not seen in more than ten years. I begin by digitally altering my photographs with color and light filters, creating several versions. My color palettes recall M&M's, Necco Wafers, wet-Necco Wafers and Kodachrome, traversing familiar to extreme re-representation. The paintings range across my many 'takes' on this subject, from a candy-land pastel light to an off-register red-green washy surface. In my life I often turn thoughts and problems over in my head, obsessively looking at them every which way; my painting of these places is a lot like that. In this play of remembering, examining and altering, I excavate a range of perceptions, addressing each from slightly different points of view.
"Linda Gottesfeld: Pearlbrook Drive" on view at Ellen Miller Gallery from June 15 through August 3, 2012. The public is invited to the opening reception on Friday, June 15, 5-7 pm. reception on Friday, June 15, 5-7 pm.
Web: ellenmillergallery.com
Facebook: Ellen Miller Gallery
Email: ellen@ellenmillergallery.com
All images copyright of Linda Gottesfeld.