Ellen Berkenblit’s eighth solo exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery, Sistergarden, populates the main space with eleven large-scale paintings that form a dizzying daisy-chain of faces. Each face emerges from a velvety abyss with unbridled intensity and a noticeable shift in palette. The artist’s signature electric colors now merge with earth tones and twilight blues. This otherworldly color language, coupled with formal choices in cropping, creates a subplot of intrigue. Berkenblit’s compositions intentionally exclude narrative attributes, allowing the viewer to focus on the emotional qualities of paint application, brushstroke, and shape.
Ellen Berkenblit (born 1958 in Paterson, NJ) is an American painter who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA from The Cooper Union in 1980. Her work is included in the public collections of the Aspen Art Museum, CO; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Cincinnati Art Museum, OH; Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME; the Minnesota Museum of American Art, St Paul, MN; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.
In 2019 Berkenblit was commissioned to create a site-specific mural Leopard’s Lane for the MCA Chicago’s Atrium Project. In 2018 The Drawing Center commissioned the artist to create her first experimental film Lines Roar. Recent group exhibitions include All Of Them Witches organized by Dan Nadel and Laurie Simmons, Deitch Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2020); Downtown Painting Presented by Alex Katz, Peter Freeman, New York, NY; True Blue Mirror: Ellen Berkenblit and Sarah Braman, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; ELECTIVE AFFINITIES, Sammlung Friedrichshof, Austria (2018); Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Hope and Hazard: A Comedy of Eros, Hall Art Collection, Reading, VT; and MCA DNA: Riot Grrrls at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (all 2017).
The show runs from February 20 – March 28, 2020. For further information visit the Anton Kern Gallery website.
Featured image: Ellen Berkenblit, Tiger Tails, 2020, oil on linen, 88 x 76 inches (223.5 x 193 cm)
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