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.
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.
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The Bedroom
$3,800.00 Add to cart -
Woman in Black Hat
$3,800.00 Add to cart -
Woman in Pink Roses Hat
$4,000.00 Add to cart -
Woman in Straw Hat
$5,500.00 Add to cart -
Woman in Doorway
$7,500.00 Add to cart -
Woman on Rosebud Sheets
$11,500.00 Add to cart -
Woman with Bunny and Cardinal
$7,800.00 Add to cart -
Woman with Muff
$7,500.00 Add to cart
B.A. 1987 Harvard University, Studied Painting One – On One with Alfred Decredico and William Reimann, Literature and Fiction Writing with William Alfred and Carlos
Fuentes
1988-1991 The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, NYC, NY, and
The International School of Art in Umbria, (Studied with Nicolas Carone)
2001 MFA/sculpture – The New York Academy
- Jonathan Frost Gallery, Rockland, ME (2017)
- The Lionheart Galery, Pound Ridge, NY (2014 And 2016)
- The Art Cabinet Nantucket, MA (1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2010-2014)
- Chrysalis Gallery, Southampton, NY (2013 And 2015)
- The American Art Gallery, Carmel, CA (2010)
- The White Gallery, Lakeville, CT (2013)
- Hubert Gallery, 1046 Madison, NY, NY, (2007)
- Gallery Yellow, Cross River, NY, (2007)
- CN&B, Munich, Germany (2004) The (X)Gallery, Nantucket, MA (1996)
- Nardin Galleries, Cross River NY (1993), Nardin Fine Arts, Somers, NY (1994,1995,1996,1997)
- The New York Studio School Scholarship Show NYC, NY (1989,1990,1991), Alumni Show (2017)
Commission painted for the Pastoral Bishop, Jeanne Person of Saint John the Divine Cathedral, NYC, NY, collaboration with Marni Group S.R. L., Milan, Italy, licensed right to use images two figurative oil paintings to print on fabric used for the 2019 and 2020 runway collection, original painting purchased by the company, 700+ pieces sold internationally, including to the collections of princess Donatella Borghese, Rome, Italy (4 pieces); Mani Group S.R. L,. Creative Director, (1 original piece directly purchased) Mrs. Andrew Hyde, Hyde Park, NY; Mr and Mrs Jack Welch, (4 pieces) Nantucket and Miami, Mr. Christopher Walken, NYC, NY; Mr. George Stephanopoulous, NYC, NY, Mr. Aaron Payne; mural commissions: the city wine and cigar company NYC, NY, MRS. Emmy Lou Morgantheau, NYC, NY; plus twelve portrait commissions
