Please join us at Silvermine Galleries for the solo exhibition of artist Elizabeth Gilfilen, winner of the Board Chair Grand Prize from the 72nd A-ONE Exhibition. Gilfilen’s paintings and works on paper have been included in group shows at Morgan Lehman Gallery, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and the Bronx Museum, among others.
I move with and behind my brush. Line leads and often my hands and body know before I do what must happen next in the painting. With varying speed, I leave a trace of my presence on the painting, and the residue is not unlike the fluid current that occurs as an object moves through water or air.
“My paintings begin with a layering of mottled color that creates a light or staging that I can respond to. I cast my line into the color space, and allow it to cluster and gather into suggestive formations. I think of the marks as a kind of rhythmic swirling of movement and feeling that ebbs inward then swerves out again, creating structure and hinting at recognizable forms. This is a spontaneous activity in which the material properties of paint; its slipperiness, opacity and viscosity are put into an uneasy tension with legibility.
Specific places and moments are conjured as I work, and landscapes that bridge inner and outer worlds evolve. I seek the associative thoughts and images brought on by the painting act. I think of these paintings as both mineral and pigment rich, yet connected to the sopping liquidity of paint.”
Elizabeth Gilfilen, March 2024
