ann getsinger
imaginarium
COVER: Bucce di Gioconda 2020 Oil on linen 36 x 24 inches
Ann Getsinger paints a world both within and outside herself. The paintings are a place of meeting where her imagination coalesces with meticulously rendered objects and landscapes, resulting in thoughtful and beguiling tableaux. The pastiche of dream-like scenes and hyperrealist execution reflects life’s integration of people and nature, past and present, and physical and metaphysical. The paintings are dynamic and bold compositions that reveal themselves in layers of exquisite detail, indicative of the way the artist experiences life—alert to the minutia of her environment and open to the infinity of her reveries. Careful looking is rewarded as objects in the foreground often give way to subsidiary narratives featuring flora and fauna. Getsinger began painting what she terms “stillscapes” in the 1990s, integrating her landscape, still-life, and figurative training with her imagination. A resident of New Marlborough, MA, she feels truly alive and inspired in the Berkshires, as well as mid-coast Maine where she has spent time all her life. She works from memory on the landscapes she knows so well, freed by her deep-seated knowledge of both her surroundings and her craft to let her playfulness come through. She makes mental notes all the time, always observing and staying open to inspiration from any direction. Objects are set up in her studio, but the story of each painting evolves organically as the artist considers her place in the world.
Strong foregrounds confront the viewer while the backgrounds reveal themselves more slowly, adding to a sense of mystery. An otter with a piercing gaze is framed by a whirling violet sky, a purple cauliflower blooms from a corner while moody clouds blow the grass, antlers and a shell perch atop a bench surrounded by a turbulent garden of wildflowers , a dress washes ashore as swirling waves kiss unblemished sand. Getsinger’s curious and surrealist combinations are anchored by flawless painting techniques in which color, line, form, and texture create dynamic compositions and verisimilitude creates believability. The careful details of the flowers and plants demonstrate Getsinger’s love of botany (she is prone to study things like the plants that grow at the base of a waterfall or the intricacies of a swamp). Imaginaria are places devoted to the cultivation of imagination, an exercise that Ann Getsinger undertakes with one foot firmly planted. Einstein wrote that: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” Getsinger uses her knowledge—her daily acknowledgment of beautiful things, her sense of place in familiar landscapes, her lifetime of training in the arts—to ground her paintings. But she uses her imagination to paint beyond the limits of knowledge, offering insight to her fanciful and expansive view of life and inviting viewers to access their own imaginative narrative.
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Otter
2020 Oil on linen 40 x 40 inches
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sylvanus
2020 Oil on linen 40 x 40 inches
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wallflower 2020 Oil on linen 20 x 16 inches
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mystic sip
2020 Oil on linen 20 x 16 inches
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Southfield Store 2020 Oil on linen 24 x 24 inches
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Unstill Life
2020 Oil on linen 40 x 30 inches
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Bees
2020 Oil on linen 36 x 36 inches
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Lullaby of birdbath
2019 Oil on linen 36 x 24 inches
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suspension 2020 Oil on linen 20 x 24 inches
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CRACKLE
2020 Oil on linen 24 x 24 inches
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FUNGUS ASHORE 2012 Oil on linen 40 x 30 inches
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ann getsinger
“Making artwork is the closest I’ve come to having my life make any sense at all. It’s both indulgent and essential. It’s about balancing freedom and discipline, gut and brain, in order to explore this temporary existence, to consider the sensuality of nature and my personal connection to it.”
artist biography
Ann Getsinger is known for her oil paintings and drawings. Born on Oct. 22, 1956, Ann grew up in Watertown, Connecticut. As the youngest of five in a creative household, her earliest memories are of making artwork. She spent time at the dairy farm next door, at a nearby horse farm, and in the surrounding woods and fields where connections to nature influenced her powerfully. After studying at Paier School of Art in New Haven, CT, and the San Francisco Art Institute, she settled permanently in western Massachusetts where she studied with realist artist Sheldon Fink. The Artist’s home and studio, since 1988, is in the rural Berkshire town of New Marlborough, Massachusetts. She also works regularly in the mid-coast area of Maine. Ann’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries and hangs in hundreds of homes.
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ann getsinger imaginarium June 6– July 12, 2020
2 Depot Street Stockbridge, MA 01262 www.stockbridgestationgallery.com
Thirty percent of the proceeds of sales from this exhibition will go to the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.