Statement:
I have always felt the confines of frame and support for making a painting, and questioned the traditional parameters of what a painting is, how it is made, what it can do, and where it can go. Using the materials within the customary aspects associated with traditional painting, a wood support, the canvas and paint, I switched-out the roles these materials play. Through a comprehensive reimagining of these elements I have repurposed these materials. This investigation has led me to push my personal perception of the relationship between painting and sculpture, especially their shared qualities, and it is my hope to succeed in leading the viewer to question their own expectations.
I apply a materialistic approach to making a painting as opposed to an image-based narrative. In doing so, my paintings become spatial, establishing relationships with architectural space and the physical presence of the viewer. For me, the materials have their own inherited narrative, which, depending on how they are presented can vary for each viewer, allowing for a wider, personal interpretation.
I still employ a canvas support for paint. The paint is being held by the canvas; however, it is not applied to the canvas’s surface. In addition to canvas, works are also made with tarpaulin, jute and reused burlap bags. These fabrics are usually torn, sewn or glued together. The canvas is more than just a substrate for paint resembling more of a structure or container, informed by the paint.
I want to question paint, the material itself, it’s weight, color and presence, as well as its relationships to the canvas. I perceive paint as having form reacting to gravity as it is poured, applied or placed on a canvas. The paint’s surface is flat with a monochrome color, usually protruding from the wall. This expanded field of painting possesses a materialistic and spatial integration which leads itself to site-specific installations. I do not paint illusions, however, in my work the paint itself becomes the illusion in an interchangeable relationship between painting and sculpture.
Bio:
Howard Schwartzberg was born in 1965 in Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY. He received his BFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY and his Master’s in Education from the University of New England, Maine. Schwartzberg began showing work in 1990. He has been in several group shows in New York, including the Drawing Center and Stux Gallery. He has had solo exhibitions at Momenta Art, Brooklyn NY, Silverstein Gallery Chelsea NY, Dorsky Gallery Soho, NY and most recently at and Private Public Gallery in Hudson NY and 57W57Arts in New York City. In 1999 the artist created “Surface”, a large environmental earthwork in Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY.
In 1999, Schwartzberg received the NYC Art Teachers Association/UFT Honorary Art Educators Award. In 2001, Schwartzberg dedicated all of his energy to teaching public school children and stopped creating his paintings. He switched his medium from paint to making art with education. Thinking of education as an art medium lead him to create special programs for students and teachers alike. This work incorporated social engagement (as art), relational aesthetics and video documentation of learning along with classroom objects as teaching tools. During his tenure as a high school art teacher, Schwartzberg developed art programs for disadvantaged children throughout the five boroughs. For the last ten years he taught art to students in the largest public high school in Queens, NY. After nearly a twenty-year hiatus, Schwartzberg retired from teaching, focusing full time on painting once again.
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