Howard Schwartzberg, "Pouch Painting (Fluorescent Pink)"

Howard Schwartzberg, "Pouch Painting (Fluorescent Pink)" Canvas, paint, hydrocal, thread, glue, push pins 11 x 8.75 x 2.5 inches Artist Bio: I grew up in Coney Island, Brooklyn, and spent many childhood summers at a bungalow colony in Woodbourne, NY. These experiences left a lasting impression and a deep connection to nature that planted the seeds for an eventual return. I began exhibiting in New York City in the early 1990s at The Drawing Center and Stux Gallery, leading to a one-person exhibition at Silverstein Gallery in Chelsea in 1998, and an environmental earthwork at Socrates Sculpture Park in 1999. For over twenty years I taught art in the New York City public school system, and I integrated concepts of relational aesthetics into educational programs I designed for students, staff, and the wider community. Since my retirement, I have refocused on painting in my NYC and Catskills studios and exhibiting again -- most recently with two solo shows at Private Public Gallery in Hudson, NY, and with an upcoming solo show at the University at Albany. Artist Statement: From my earliest engagement with painting, I wanted to explore what it meant to paint on my own terms. I questioned the very structure of painting itself – having found the rectangular, straight- edged shape of a painting and its conventional presentation to be limiting with little space to grow. This perspective opened areas of experimentation and investigation of where painting could go if it were not bound by traditional expectations. My work investigates how canvas holds and contains paint, how paint shapes the canvas, and how paint itself creates illusion, but not a pictorial illusion.