I am Here: Marianne Kolb by Seager Gray Gallery

Marianne Kolb:I Am Here

I Am Here Paintings by Marianne Kolb

I Am Here Exhibition: October 2 - October 31, 2018 Reception for the Artist, Saturday, October 6, 5:30 - 7:30 Front Cover: Marianne Kolb, Amal, 2018, mixed media on panel, (detail), Back Cover: Marianne Kolb, T h e W h i t e P a i n t i n g s N o . 1 , mixed media on panel, 15.75 x 14.75 in

I want to work in revelationsâ&#x20AC;Ś I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down everyone will understand because they are the same as me that far down.

Jack Kerouac

Amal mixed media on panel 44 x 30 in

There is no mistaking a painting by Marianne Kolb. Her singular female figures stand in glorious imperfection against backgrounds of pure unsaturated color. One of the paintings, Amal portrays a woman standing against a field of pure royal blue. Her face is mottled, with mere suggestions of features still managing to convey character. Worn proudly, her dress, with it’s gorgeous yellow cream band and white lace collar is at times translucent, uneven. To look at these paintings of wraith-like women, with names like Carmen, Nadia, Fumiko and Serena, is to be struck by their humanity, their pride and their shame, their beauty and their scars. “I focus on the forces beneath the surface -- the dread, the frenzy, isolation, fear, separation, love, intimacy, hope, humor, whimsy,” the artist explains. “I want the viewer to feel something very deep and yet common -- that each one of us is uniquely different while we’re part of the greater whole.” The critical tension in the paintings comes from Kolb’s uncanny ability to convey vulnerability and defiance at the same time. Peter Selz, art historian and former curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, wrote that Kolb’s paintings “affirm the comic tragedy of human existence.” Kolb grew up in an isolated farming village near Bern, Switzerland, where the atmosphere was patriarchal, regimented and disciplined, with little interest in nurturing the creative spirit. The expectation was that Kolb would follow tradition, get married, have children and take care of a husband. “Most of the time I felt I didn’t fit in,” she says. “It was suffocating.” The painfulness of her situation and the internal struggle within fueled a sensitivity to the courageous women who struggle and endure in spite of difficulty and even abuse.

Stella mixed media on panel 47.5 x 38.5 in

She is drawn to those who don’t have it easy, whether from sickness, depression, poverty or catastrophe. The paintings in the exhibition are intentionally all women in response to the “Me Too” movement. “I feel we are all a little crazy, deficient, damaged goods to some degree or another and yet we have the capacity to feel and show empathy, compassion and innocence,” she says. “We are imperfect, having adapted to whatever circumstances mark our lives and yet we endure, stripped to our essence and valiant in the determination to meet every challenge.” Kolb’s paintings are done in one sitting. With an attitude she refers to as “detached involvement,” meaning totally present yet completely detached from the outcome, she doesn’t approach the canvas with a particular image in mind. Mixing her colors directly on the canvas without a pallet, she paints intuitively, letting the figure and background emerge and crystallize into a unified whole. “I go to it with pigment in my hands and do something to that piece of material in front of me, then work almost at random until the image begins to assert itself,” she explains. In addition to the eleven larger works, this exhibition includes the “The White Series,” a series of eleven smaller paintings that began as abstractions created with sumi ink, rust and gesso on ghostly white backgrounds. In the abstractions, Kolb discovers the beginnings of a figure - eyes, face, form. The result is a group of mysterious and engaging works with surfaces enticingly smooth and utterly satisfying. Both series give tribute to the beauty and depth of human struggle and provide her subjects with an imaginary opportunity to be seen as they are – the courageous heroes of their own lives - to assert themselves and say “See me. I am here.”

Carmen,

mixed media on panel, 61 x 48 in

Chris Gwaltney Extravagant, 2018 oil on linen 55 x 44 in

Fumiko,

mixed media on panel, 44 x 30 in

Kate,

mixed media on panel, 47.5 x 38.5 in

Hope,

mixed media on panel, 44 x 30 in

Nadia,

mixed media on panel, 61 x 48 in

Olivia,

mixed media on panel, 44 x 30 in

Serena,

mixed media on panel, 47.5 x 38.5 in

Stella,

mixed media on panel, 47.5 x 38.5 in

Portrait No. 16,

mixed media on panel, 16 x 12 in

Sophie,

mixed media on panel, 14 x 11 in

The White Album

The White Paintings No. 1,

mixed media on panel, 15.75 x 14.75 in

The White Paintings No. 2,

mixed media on panel, 24 x 19 in

The White Paintings No. 3,

mixed media on panel, 24 x 19 in

The White Paintings No. 4,

mixed media on panel, 23 x 17.25 in

The White Paintings No. 5,