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Ellen Berkenblit

Past exhibition
May 25 - July 6, 2017
  • Overview
  • Installation Views
  • Works
  • Press
Overview
Ellen Berkenblit Untitled, 2017 Oil, paint stick and charcoal on calico 76 x 58 inches (193.04 x 147.32 cm)
Ellen Berkenblit
Untitled, 2017
Oil, paint stick and charcoal on calico
76 x 58 inches
(193.04 x 147.32 cm)

In her sixth solo show at Anton Kern Gallery, New York based painter Ellen Berkenblit presents a new body of work that connects her love of textiles to her painting practice. The artist’s clever placement of works across the two gallery spaces creates rhythm and drama throughout the exhibition, while still eschewing narrative. This new work bears the fluidity and confidence of a seasoned artist doing what comes naturally.

 

Time stands still in her quiet portraits of horses set against a black abyss. Suspense builds as nailpolished fingers prepare to pluck a single flower. The compositions reach a fever pitch as unruly girls stir up mischief with electric blue and green stripes. Having worked on these paintings simultaneously in her studio, one can see echoes of colors, lines, and curves that repeat, forming a signature that carries across the show. This powerfully feminine group of paintings create a mood that alternates between reflection and revelry.

 

Among her largescale canvases, the artist introduces paintings on calico, a floralpatterned cotton textile that is a personally resonant yet commonplace material, which she discovered handles paint in a unique way. Berkenblit starts with pieces of calico, sewing one to the next in rectilinear swaths to create an improvised fabric ‘drawing’, which is backed with canvas and stretched onto stretchers. She then maps lines through spontaneous calligraphic gestures of her brush. Ecstatic colors gain form through the use of black, which alternately masks, defines, and amplifies shapes. There is a constant back and forth between calico and paint throughout the process; shifting surface textures and stitching interrupts brushstrokes, adding an element of unpredictability.

 

The artist does not approach a canvas knowing what the final result will be. She arrives at the finished work through a series of Freudian slips and visual plays that are mysterious even to herself. A birdcage becomes an umbrella, perpendicular lines hint at letters, a clock is buried under black paint. Elements plotted early on are unsentimentally scraped away in order to achieve the gut satisfaction when the puzzle fits together. Her unconscious vocabulary of images evolves as she responds from one gesture to the next.

 

Ellen Berkenblit (born 1958 in Paterson, New Jersey) is an American painter who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She received her B.F.A from The Cooper Union in 1980. Her work included in the public collections of the Aspen Art Museum, Colorado; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio; Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Recent group exhibitions include MCA DNA: Riot Grrrls at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2017); GRIND, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA; and IMAGINE, Brand New Gallery, Milan. She will be included in the forthcoming group exhibition Hope and Hazard: A Comedy of Eros, curated by Eric Fischl Hall Art Collection, Reading, VT.

 

Download Press Release
List of Works
Installation Views
  • Installation view of Ellen Berkenblit's solo show. First floor view of multiple works.
  • Installation view of Ellen Berkenblit's solo show.
  • Installation view of Ellen Berkenblit's solo show. View shows front of gallery.
  • Installation view of Ellen Berkenblit's solo show. Multiple works featured.
  • Installation view of Ellen Berkenblit's solo show. Two works presented.
  • Installation view of Ellen Berkenblit's solo show. Multiple works featured in main room of first floor.
  • Installation view of Ellen Berkenblit's solo show. Three works featured.
  • Installation view of Ellen Berkenblit's solo show. Second floor view from front of gallery.
  • Installation view of Ellen Berkenblit's solo show. Multiple works on the second floor.
  • Installation view of Ellen Berkenblit's solo show. Berkenblit's painting titled V shown here.
  • Installation view of Ellen Berkenblit's solo show. Many works featured on the second floor.
  • Installation view of Ellen Berkenblit's solo show. Two works overlooking the first floor.,
Works
  • Ellen Berkenblit Untitled, 2017
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Untitled, 2017
  • Ellen Berkenblit I Don't Object If You Call Collect, 2017
    Ellen Berkenblit
    I Don't Object If You Call Collect, 2017
  • Ellen Berkenblit Tincture of Musk, 2017
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Tincture of Musk, 2017
  • Ellen Berkenblit Scruffs, 2016
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Scruffs, 2016
  • Ellen Berkenblit Jonesy, 2017
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Jonesy, 2017
  • Ellen Berkenblit Lilac, 2016
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Lilac, 2016
  • Ellen Berkenblit Untitled, 2016
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Untitled, 2016
  • Ellen Berkenblit Alef Bet, 2016
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Alef Bet, 2016
  • Ellen Berkenblit Untitled, 2017
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Untitled, 2017
  • Ellen Berkenblit Green Plume, 2016
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Green Plume, 2016
  • Ellen Berkenblit The Foot, 2017
    Ellen Berkenblit
    The Foot, 2017
  • Ellen Berkenblit Witching Hour, 2017
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Witching Hour, 2017
  • Ellen Berkenblit Untitled, 2017
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Untitled, 2017
  • Ellen Berkenblit Untitled, 2017
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Untitled, 2017
  • Ellen Berkenblit V, 2017
    Ellen Berkenblit
    V, 2017
  • Ellen Berkenblit Untitled, 2016
    Ellen Berkenblit
    Untitled, 2016
Press
  • Tigers, Horses, and Stripes

    Dan Nadel, The New York Review of Books, June 30, 2017
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  • Goings on About Town: Ellen Berkenblit

    The New Yorker, June 12, 2017
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  • Will Someone Please Give Ellen Berkenblit a Museum Show Already?

    John Yau, Hyperallergic, June 10, 2017
    This link opens in a new tab.
  • Eavesdropping on the Whole World: Ellen Berkenblit

    Harry Darrell, Mousse Magazine, June 1, 2017
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  • Critics' Picks New York: Ellen Berkenblit

    Nicole Kaack, Artforum, June 1, 2017
    This link opens in a new tab.
  • Ellen Berkenblit Solo Exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery, New York

    Purple, May 30, 2017
  • This Week's Best New Art: Ellen Berkenblit

    Time Out New York, May 22, 2017
    This link opens in a new tab.

Related artist

  • Ellen Berkenblit

    Ellen Berkenblit

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