Overview
Stephen Friedman Gallery is pleased to present a focus on American painter Pam Glick.
The exhibition follows Glick’s recent solo presentations at Frieze New York and Independent, both curated by Matthew Higgs. Glick and Higgs have worked together before, most notably on her 2016 solo exhibition at White Columns, the influential alternative art space where Higgs is director and chief curator. This critically acclaimed show – Glick’s first in New York in over 20 years - cemented her reputation as a rigorous and experimental painter with a fresh approach to abstraction.
The paintings in Pam Glick’s focus exhibition in London are notable for their rhythmic formal play whereby grid-like patterns are juxtaposed with looping gestural swirls. Reinforcing the rectilinear shape of the canvas, the artist creates an architecture of interconnected vertical and horizontal segments which she punctuates with arcs, zigs, zips and diagonals. Like the rhythm section in music, Glick establishes an underlying structure to guide her compositions. Painted primarily in white against brilliant shades of blue, or sometimes using a pink or yellow ground offset by bold, graphic lines and scalloped curves, Glick creates a visual contrast between movement and stillness, freedom and containment. Syncopated bursts of colour interrupt her closely calibrated backgrounds. Splatters of house paint in saturated hues peek through the paintings’ architecture, offering a shift in tempo and a palimpsest of free-style mark making.
Stephen Friedman Gallery is pleased to present a focus on American painter Pam Glick. The exhibition follows Glick’s recent solo presentations at Frieze New York and Independent, both curated by Matthew Higgs. Glick and Higgs have worked together before, most notably on her 2016 solo exhibition at White Columns, the influential alternative art space where Higgs is director and chief curator. This critically acclaimed show – Glick’s first in New York in over 20 years - cemented her reputation as a rigorous and experimental painter with a fresh approach to abstraction.
The paintings in Pam Glick’s focus exhibition in London are notable for their rhythmic formal play whereby grid-like patterns are juxtaposed with looping gestural swirls. Reinforcing the rectilinear shape of the canvas, the artist creates an architecture of interconnected vertical and horizontal segments which she punctuates with arcs, zigs, zips and diagonals. Like the rhythm section in music, Glick establishes an underlying structure to guide her compositions. Painted primarily in white against brilliant shades of blue, or sometimes using a pink or yellow ground offset by bold, graphic lines and scalloped curves, Glick creates a visual contrast between movement and stillness, freedom and containment. Syncopated bursts of colour interrupt her closely calibrated backgrounds. Splatters of house paint in saturated hues peek through the paintings’ architecture, offering a shift in tempo and a palimpsest of free-style mark making.
Glick lives and works between Buffalo, New York and Manhattan. Her paintings evoke both locales in unexpected ways. Niagara Falls is the subject and inspiration behind her ‘Box of Rain’ series. At six feet squared, they feel human-scaled while suggesting the grandeur of the sublime. They respond to the energy, cadence, and unfixed nature of water, while simultaneously channelling the vertiginous topography, city grids and free spirit of her urban surroundings. Aspects of Mondrian’s ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie’ (1942-43), Cézanne’s landscapes, Velásquez’s ‘Las Meninas’ (1656), and Matisse’s interiors also seep into her work. The fold of a garment, the dance of light, the interplay of flatness and volume within these works serve as her building blocks and inspiration, often obscured but ever-present.
Stephen Friedman Gallery is pleased to present a focus on American painter Pam Glick.
Installation Views
