Pantirer cat low

NANCY PANTIRER

NANCY PANTIRER Elements of Illusion

December 1 - December 26, 2009

Elements of Illusion #2, 2008, digital print, 28� x 35�

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Nancy Pantirer: Elements of Illusion

New Geometries Born From Color

by Lisa Paul Streitfeld

Nancy Pantirer’s new series, Elements of Illusion, identifies her as an experimental painter driven headlong into abstraction to come up with new forms born out of color. Not only are her paintings testimony to the delight she takes in her subterranean passage, but the joy exuded through these works reinforce the crucial fact that no contrived destination clouded their creation. Dipping into the unconscious stream, the painter revels in its riotous hues and propensity for twists and turns that we humans regard as fate.

But a true artist knows that making fate conscious is destiny. This breakthrough series is a paradox in that it crystallizes a style born out of a complete dedication to process. Having brushed her way through color field painting, the artist now lets rip her distinct style.

It is as though her erotic attraction to pigment gives birth to form itself. The physicality of the gesture, the limbs in motion, illuminate the inner realms of the psyche. Clearly, the journey isn’t all light; yet, shadows appear not as blockages but surprising confrontations. This establishes unexpected trajectories, as we experience in #10 of the series. Here the crossing of the outward extending ascending curved black line with a descending fiery red crescent triggers the imagination as the opposites converging in a bow and arrow symbolism.

As an artist devoted to the psychological underpinnings of human behavior, Pantirer makes transparent her fascination with Chance and the visual form of the Happy Accident. Truly splendid in this regard is #9, a Yod configuration in yellow, opaque at the root of the fork giving way to porous in its two arms; 9 is the number of wisdom and Yod is the mystical shape known as the “Finger of God” which gives birth to miracles.

This expedition of pigment between the fibers of the brush and the white surface of the canvas, is the “illusion” captured by the artist with liquid specificity. The meeting of the elements – earth (pigment), air (motion) with fire (the force of the artist’s desire) – creates the drama for the birth of erotic forms.

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And how we experience them! An unintended yet significant motif runs as a narrative thread through the series as a wave. Sometimes thin and tentative, at other times thick and opaque, and just as frequently a combination of the two, this ever-changing motif declares its utility of purpose in being precisely what it appears to be: a connecting thread. Embracing the opposites as a non-linear narrative line through these works, the wave establishes an optical focus in these paintings, thereby transforming the viewer into observer/participant.

Riding this wave into sensuous liquidity of form is clearly the delight of Elements of Illusion. We get a sense of new geometries being born, not the harsh angles of masculine-dominated Euclidian space, but the sensuous and fluid, ever-expanding feminine shapes that entice us to rise the collapsing quantum wave into a direct experience of life. In this sense, we merge into a deeper reality, the paradox of art itself -- how a material object can hold the dynamism of the universe, which is, after all, inside every one of us.

Lisa Paul Streitfeld is an art critic and curator. Her credits include The New York Times and Sculpture among other publications.

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Nancy Pantirer: Elements of Illusion

Elements of Illusion #18, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 67” x 159”

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Elements of Illusion #3, 2008, digital print, 32� x 32�

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Nancy Pantirer: Elements of Illusion

Elements of Illusion #4, 2008, digital print, 32� x 32�

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Elements of Illusion #5, 2008, acrylic on canvas. 48” x 48”

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Nancy Pantirer: Elements of Illusion

Elements of Illusion #6, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 48” x 48”

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Elements of Illusion #7, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 36” x 36”

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Nancy Pantirer: Elements of Illusion

Elements of Illusion #8, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 48” x 48”

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Elements of Illusion #9, 2008, digital print, 32� x 32�

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Nancy Pantirer: Elements of Illusion

Elements of Illusion #10, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 67” x 60”

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Elements of Illusion #11, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 24” x 24”

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Nancy Pantirer: Elements of Illusion

Elements of Illusion #1, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 48” x 48”

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BIOGRAPHY

EDUCATION Master of Arts, Montclair State College, Montclair, NJ Bachelor of Fine Arts, Hartford Art School, University of Hartford, Hartford, CT Pratt University, Brooklyn, NY Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, Boston, MA Perugia Art Institute, Perugia, Italy SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2009 Elements of Illusion, New Art Center, New York, NY 2007 Color Fields, Artspace 129, Montclair, NJ 2006 Second Wednesday, Tribeca, New York, NY 2004 Women of the Bible, The Gaelen Gallery, Whippany, NJ 2002 New Work, Artsforum Gallery, New York, NY 2000 Ladies in Waiting...,The Marquis Gallery, National Arts Club, New York, NY 1991 Recent Works The Marquis Gallery, National Arts Club, New York, NY 1990 Works in Progress, Blue Studio, Oakland, CA 1984 New Work, Accent Gallery, New York, NY 1980 Breaking Out, Alternate Space Gallery, New York, NY 1979 Montclair State University Gallery Geometry Series, W & W Gallerry, New York, NY GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2009 7th Annual Open Online Exhibition, National Arts Club, New York, NY 2008 TOAST, New York, NY Arts Council of Livingston, Livingston, NJ

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Nancy Pantirer: Elements of Illusion

2007 TOAST, New York, NY A Truly Happy Hour, The Valerie Fund/Tycher Family Foundation, NYC 2006 Sideshow Gallery, Williamsburg, NY TOAST, New York, NY 2005 Local Color, Artspace 129, Montclair, NJ TOAST, New York, NY Salon III, The Loft @ 81 Leonard, New York, NY Salon II, The Loft @ 81 Leonard, New York, NY 2004 TOAST Tribeca, New York, NY SURFACE, New Arts Center, New York, NY Salon I, The Loft @ 81 Leonard, New York, NY 2003 Narrative Abstraction, New Art Center, New York, NY Juried Invitational Art, Gaelen Gallery, Whippany, NJ Juried Invitational Art, The Gaelen Gallery, JCC Metrowest, Whippany, NJ Narrative Abstraction, New Arts Center, New York, NY 2001 Gallery Artists, Artsforum Gallery, New York, NY Double Take, West Orange Arts Council, West Orange, NJ 1998 Push to the Edge, The Gregg and Marquis Gallery, National Arts Club, New York, NY 1997 Give Them An Inch, The Gregg and Marquis Gallery, National Arts Club, New York, NY Insight, Nancy Bergman Pantirer, Mary Cunningham, John Gieffen, Cara London, Lothan Osterberg, Sasha Silversiein Insight Studio, New York, NY 1983 Focus on Art, National Council of Jewish Women, Livingston, NJ 1982 Montclair State College, Juror Show, Montclair, NJ 1980 Two Women (with Tema Zak), Montclair State College, Montclair, NJ 1978 Watkinson Gallery, West Hartford, CT

1977 Josloff Gallery, Hartford University Gallery, CT (2 person show)

BIBLIOGRAPHY Blake, Chelsea, “Art on a grand scale:Painter-Sculptor evokes viewer’s aesthetic emotions,” Morristown Daily Record, March 2, 2007

PROJECTS / INSTALLATIONS 2007 West Orange Energy Project, West Orange, NJ New Jersey Symphony, State Theatre, New Brunswick, NJ Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ NJPAC, Newark, NJ 2006 Art Strings, New Jersey Symphony, Newark, NJ

Gilligan, Kathy,”For the Love of Creation, Short HIlls Artist Finds Freedom is, Indeed Abstract”, Suburban Essex Magazine, Summer 2006 Halez, Piri, On the Mayor’s Doorstep, December 2005 Featured on The Learning Channel (TLC) Program “Faking It,” April 2004 NJJN, Metrowest Journal, November, 1, 2001 Nolan, Joe, (Interview), “Cows on Parade,” ABC News, May 2000

2005 Artrageous, Edwin Gould Services for Children and Families, New York, NY 2004 Artrageous, Edwin Gould Services for Children and Families, New York, NY 2003 Artrageous, Edwin Gould Services for Children and Families, New York, NY Millennium Homes, Livingston, NJ

Craughwell, Thomas, “Cow Parade NY, Nancy Pantirer, Ms. Moogestic,” p141, Workman Publishing, 2000 Halez, Piri, On the Mayor’s Doorstep, April, 1998 Polaner, Palmer, “Geometry – The Tradition, The Reality, The Future, More Free Geometry,” Artspeak Magazine, Gallery Review, Volume 1 No II, April 24, 1980

2001 The Egg Came First, The White House, Easter Egg Roll, Washington, DC Eggstravaganza, Pediatric Epilepsy Project, Brentwood, CA Women of Valor, The Rachel Coalition, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, Short HIlls, NJ

2000 Cow Parade, West Orange, NJ COLLECTIONS Betram Associates, NJ Blue Studio, CA BNE Inc., NJ Hurd Hall, Washington University, St. Louis, MO National Arts Club, NYC Robert Treat Hotel, NJ Roseland Properties, Highlands NJ Vizcaya, West Orange, NJ AWARDS 2003 “Best In Show,” solo show award, The Gaelen Gallery Juried Invitational Art, Gaelen Gallery, JCC Metrowest, Whippany, NJ

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This catalog has been published in conjunction with the exhibition NANCY PANTIRER: Elements of Illusion, organized by the New Art Center.

All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic and mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval systems, in part or in whole, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

Copyright Š 2009 Images: Nancy Pantirer

Copyright Š 2009 Essay: Lisa Paul Streitfeld

Design: Artelligent Graphics

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