Ann Strassman
You Are There
This is Ann Strassman’s first solo exhibit with the gallery. Painting from photographs she has taken of people on the street going about their everyday activities or of her glorious gardens, she brings to the viewer a sense of exuberance. Using acrylics, she paints on cardboard appliance boxes and other cardboard containers which to others would be tossed or recycled. Using the large format these boxes allow, her portraits are almost life-size. When sitting in the gallery, you are surrounded by strangers -- and you, too, join the energy and activity of busy streets. It’s all about the paint for Strassman.
“Paintings fill the walls- I sit in my studio and visit with the faces that have become part of my life- my other family. The paint flows over the surface and puddles into rumpled shirts and rumpled faces. A single swipe of a large brush makes a figure reflected in the window. The worn wood of a city bench appears and the sun shines on it- a woman holds down one end reading the New York Times. I wonder if she does the puzzle. Strangers, unguarded glances and gestures, a sleepy nod, the small scenes that mark the day- insight, imagination and empathy combine to make a painting.
My materials vary depending on the image I want to create, the size and what works visually. I use oils on canvas and acrylics on cardboard. The two sets of materials are quite different to work with and produce two distinct results. Oil allows me to work slower as the paint remains wet and malleable for a considerable time- paint can be blended on the canvas, built up, cut into or scraped off. It is easier to make the subtle changes that hint at bone beneath the skin. The acrylics on cardboard change their quality with every layer. At first the paint is absorbed but finally creates a surface where the pigment drips and splashes on the surface. The juxtaposition of the graphics on the cardboard with the painterly marks forms an exciting contrast – man and machine. My current body of work starts on the street. People living their public lives- the similarities and foibles that separate and connect. The subjects that interest me are not always human- animals, birds and trees are seen on my surfaces, but they are always alive. I paint the impermanence and struggle of existence and instill life under the skin. My work is literal-there are no metaphors -- just the magic of paint.” -Ann Strassman
Daphne Confar
My People
We are pleased to be showing Daphne Confar’s, My People, her first exhibit in the gallery. Confar's paintings, oils on wood or paper, feel like snapshots found in a family album -- individuals seen in their everyday lives, in ordinary settings doing ordinary things. These twenty paintings were all created in 2018 and combine portraits of many of Confar’s close friends as well as examples of her imagined people. Confar is known for her “plain folk” characters who exist because of her personal experiences and who are defined in part by their narrative titles. For example, Vera appears huggable, but she’s not, is a 10x8” oil with gilding that shows a sweet middle-aged lady, a grandmotherly type -- but who has an edge! We relate to Confar’s people for we feel that we have met her characters at some point. There’s an immediate connection to the emotions her work reveals to the mood of the people, imagined or real.
“My work is about capturing that something about people that makes them feel familiar to us; that something which tugs on our heart or reminds us of a feeling we’ve had about someone. I really appreciate people’s stories. I enjoy imagining what people lives are like, what make them tick, what makes them nervous, and if they have regrets. I capture the look on a face when someone is having a happy memory, or the body language of someone who is not sure of themselves. I know those feelings and I thin usually my viewers recognize them as well. “ -Daphne Confar
Confar received her B.F.S from the Art Institute of Southern California, Laguna Beach, and her M.F.A. from Boston University. She was awarded the Ballinglen Arts Foundation Fellowship in 2011 with a residency at Ballycastle, Co. Mayo, Ireland. Confar’s work is in many private and public collections.