NYAB Event - Barry Goldberg "Echolocation"

Barry Goldberg "Echolocation"

Howard Scott Gallery

This event has ended.

Howard Scott Gallery presents the opening, on 5 May its fourth one-person exhibition of the work of Barry Goldberg.

"For the past few years, though not as a conscious effort, I've found myself inspired by themes of water, brought on mainly by my technical shift from the predominant use of encaustic paints to my current investigations with pigment sticks. The pigment stick, as its name would suggest, is a highly pigmented blend of linseed oil and just a touch of wax in a stick form. Used in conjunction with tube oils and glazes they dry to a satin translucent sheen that, for me, evoke the depth of water. The grounds I develop for their use are built up using many thin layers of lead paint mixed with oil colors, like slip applied to clay. I like putting blocks of colors on these clay-like surfaces and gazing into their spaces. These spaces seem to have the depth of water. Sometimes I feel like I'm deep in the sea looking out windows of my submarine boat.

Formally, my work has undergone slight shifts over the past several years. I continue to be inspired by my heroes: Rothko, Newman, Brancusi, for example, and my ideas develop in much the same way. I typically begin by referencing small thumbnail sketches I've made on 3 X 5 index cards. The ones that present themselves most profoundly to me over time are then developed into watercolor studies on 8 1/2 X 11 inches sheets of archival ink jet paper. These watercolor studies very closely approximate the eventual oil & pigment stick paintings in that the translucency and dynamics of application are very similar.

I love the idea that colors can elicit a feeling and produce energy. They can do this by themselves or in combination with another. There is a need to contain these colors, to present them within a constraint and a shape; by then they achieve a depth. The visual signals we emit come back to us from that depth and affirm our location. Often I look back upon my paintings at a later time and wonder who made them, and feel a longing. The longing creates a tension that makes it all worthwhile.

I truly feel that it is up to us to present space in a compelling way. We are informed by our predecessors, and inspired by our culture as, all the while, nature remains constant."

Barry Goldberg

Mr. Goldberg is a native of Wisconsin and resident of Philadelphia since 1972.