NYAB Event - Michael Mazur "Pond Edge"

Michael Mazur "Pond Edge"

RYAN LEE

This event has ended.

Pond Edge focuses on Michael Mazur’s use of water, especially pond imagery, in paintings, prints and works on paper from the mid 1990s through 2008. On view are paintings, oils on vellum, and experimental monoprints that are being exhibited for the first time.

The gallery has represented Michael Mazur (1935-2009) since 1990 and we are honored to represent his estate. Bodies of water and water itself have been constant sources of material and inspiration for Mazur. Ever drawn to the fluidity of the natural world and its capacity for self-renewal, Mazur found systems and structure in nature which he translated into art. Over time, his water imagery transformed from linear, realistic depictions to colorful and complex Wakeby landscapes, to the multilayered Pond Edge abstractions.

In the painting Pond Edge II, representational space dissolves completely; composition is defined only by passages of color and hints of form which advance and recede. The cascading forms and floating shapes, which are a trademark of Mazur’s imagery, seem simultaneously of land, water and body. Inspired by the compositional structure of ancient Chinese landscape paintings, his island forms and pond growths developed into layers of abstraction with varying perspectives and multiple horizon lines.

Mazur made his first Pond Edge etching 1997. This was the first of seven editioned prints (Pond Edge I – VI and Storm Warnings) that he continued making through 2008 along with numerous paintings, monotypes and drawings that share this imagery and demonstrate
his virtuosity in each medium. All of the Pond Edge works showcase Mazur’s mastery of color and painterly surface while revealing his extraordinary ability to construct a distinct and ever-changing world that blurs abstraction and realism.