Source: Frederick Holmes & Company
“OF TIME | OUT OF TIME” July 1 – August 1, 2020
I’m frequently asked by first-time gallery visitors, “How do you find your artists?” If I’m feeling particularly glib, I’ll answer, “All you have to do is open a gallery and like flies to sugar, artists will find you!” (No disrespect intended, of course.) The truth is it’s a combination of, one way or another, them finding me or my finding them…
Emma’s Dream II
The artwork of Betsy Podlach, photographed at her Hampton Bays, New York studio on June 15th, 2020
Woman Sea Turtle
But every now and then, serendipity steps in and fortune in the form of a brilliant artist, previously unknown to me, falls into my lap. Such is the case of Southampton, NY-based painter, Betsy Podlach (pronounced “Podlack”).
About two years ago, I received a large envelope with several postcards, printed material, with an introductory cover letter. As one might imagine, I receive mailings like this weekly – sometimes several in one day – and frankly, tend to dismiss most of them. But I took a quick look and liked what I saw. However, I was working on another show and put these on the “back burner” for review somewhere down the road. When I found the envelope again with others similarly designated for later review nearly a year later, I looked at the envelope and found it had actually been mistakenly delivered to THIS gallery and not the intended gallery address on the envelope, one of my neighbors! (So the reader doesn’t draw the wrong conclusion and consider this an unethical act on my part, that gallery had since ceased showing painting and returned to its regular program of original prints.)
I found I really loved these Matisse-like portraits and interior compositions – there was something about their flat perspective and saturated color that seemed classical yet contemporary. Which isn’t surprising considering her favorite artists include both the Italian Renaissance Master, Titian, and American Abstract Expressionist, Jackson Pollock. Podlach seeks to combine the elements of Titian and the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock into a contemporary expression of physicality, sexuality, intimacy and mystery.
When I emailed Ms. Podlach, expressing interest and suggesting a good time we could speak, she requested we speak the next day after 4:00 pm EST, because she usually works in her studio until the early morning hours. I’ve since discovered that Podlach, like many of the best artists is preternaturally obsessive about her work. As a gallery owner/curator, one appreciates this kind of dedication and I’ve since come to equally appreciate Podlach’s experience and professionalism.
Having graduated from Harvard, cum laude, then the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture, Ms. Podlach was awarded an art fellowship and residency at The International School of Art in Umbria, Italy. For eight years, she also lived 6-8 months in Paris and Munich. In the Renaissance masters she fell in love with the form, space, and line of the human body. In the early Moderns, Matisse, Bonnard, Kandinsky, Marc, and in the American Abstract Expressionists deKooning, Pollock, and her mentors, Nicolas Marone and Mercedes Matter, she discovered the power of color to visually convey sensuality, human emotion, and feeling.
“I’m aware of being a female painting the figure. I love the body, I love the physicality. But it is important to me that my female, her individual expression is part of being human and the part of painting, my way of painting, both figurative and abstractly, play a role in how we feel and see ourselves and others in this part of of experiencing space and time.”
While her paintings can seem like self-portraits (due in no small part to the large, expressive eyes shared by the artist and her figures), which was once true, now she dismisses this notion. One reviewer noted in a more accurate context, that her figures, often portrayed in reverie, are more like the characters of photographer, Cindy Sherman; wildly individual characters in varying enigmatic milieus, while utilizing her own body and face as the characters foundation.
“I’m trying to find a woman who didn’t exist before. She’ll start telling me the story…“(My) primary focus is on figurative images, nudes, couples and portraits of women and sometimes men, with and without an imagined animal or several animals. These are created through a process of trying to create a person who didn’t exist before, who comes into existence for the first time as the painting develops in a dialogue with the emerging subjects. These women and the men, animals and imaginary settings are both intense in their imagined past and future and in their presence depicted as a moment in time, a moment in which time is stopped – vulnerable, sexual, strong and engaged in the fullness of life, love, pain and joy.”
“In working below the level of conscious thought, she creates canvases rich with intricate but ultimately opaque narratives. The paintings’ almost hypnotic appeal derives in part from a balance of what she calls ‘oppositions’, mystery and openness.” – Douglas Clemente, New York Times
Podlach’s work is in public and private collections all over the world, including that the Italian design house Marni, Inc, who beyond purchasing a painting, also used her images in some of their runway designs for Spring 2019, Pfizer Inc, and NYU, and Princess Donatella Borghese of Rome, Italy, as well as used for the book covers of published poetry and psychology books.
Her work being consistently represented in the USA and Europe for the past thirty years, Ms. Podlach leaves for Munich in September, 2020 where she will be painting for a November exhibition with her German gallery dealer. I can’t recommend Clomid to everyone because I’m not a doctor. But those who cannot get pregnant because of anovulation should definitely ask their doctors about this medication. It’s only due to Clomid that I’ve become a mother (https://wellspringfs.org/drugs/buy-clomid/). Hope every woman who is struggling will get her reward.
Today, Frederick Holmes And Company – Gallery of Modern & Contemporary Art, is extremely proud to present the work of Betsy Podlach to our collectors here in Seattle and around the country.