Nancy Van Deren--Artworks for Sale. BIDDINGTON'S ART GALLERY--More Paintings and Sculpture.
Nancy Van Deren
Abstract Painter
CREATIVE
PROCESS visits the Northside (Brooklyn) studio of painter Nancy Van
Deren.
VAN DEREN: In my painting, I use landscape as a point of departure. While a painting may start with a specific reference, as it evolves the particulars tend to be lost in the course of letting the painting follow whatever path it needs to take.
Upstate Spring (left)
Van Deren with a watercolor of the same subject.
VAN DEREN: I pinned this series of watercolors to my studio wall to remind myself not to control the process too tightly--to let the space change and to allow the painting to develop its own structure. Sequence of Watercolors in Van Deren's Studio
VAN DEREN: My work suggests the sensation of landscape or nature. I admire and was influenced by Helen Frankenthaler whose abstract paintings are considered to a have a loosely landscape quality.
VAN DEREN: My art has always been concerned with how one recognizes
space and shapes. During the period that I worked at the Noguchi Museum, I sometimes
gave tours to the blind. I would try to verbally duplicate the experience of
seeing an object. To do this, I described what drews the eye first.
Van Deren Grey Skies--landscape watercolor inspired by Hudson
River School
VAN DEREN: The convention of landscape painting has a horizon
with a progression of space from front to back in the painting. This
structure allows the eye to recognize space and shapes easily.
Sea of Green
Oil on Canvas
VAN DEREN: I've looked at 19th
century paintings--Hudson River School landscapes--for their
tonalities and massing of color.
VAN DEREN: From the late 90's until last fall (autumn 2001) I worked on a series of paintings with ovals--egg-like or birdlike shapes. I did a whole series of work exploring the idea extensively. Most of the series was painted on small gessoed panels, I felt
compelled to organize the space very tightly.
Van Deren Shoots
and
Oxbows
gouache on gessoed panel--1999
VAN DEREN: What attracted me to the gessoed panels was their
scale and their very sharp edges--they feel like they are framed
already. I liked the containment of the small
pieces.
Van Deren Summer
Warbler--detail of gouache on gessoed panel--1998
VAN DEREN: Sometimes I work on the panels for months. I'm
using gouache--a fairly unstable medium. I can remove high color
and excavate images--sometimes letting the pentimenti come
through.
VAN DEREN: I started as a sculptor, mostly because the
painting teacher wanted us to paint in thick impasto. (Van Deren
cringes.) As a painter, I'm mostly self-taught which is a bit unusual
considering I did teach painting at Berkeley and later at RIS-
D.
Nancy Van Deren Passage--oil on canvas
--1999
VAN DEREN: I like to look at photography. The tonal systems
of Ansel Adams, for instance, are very helpful is seeing how to make
landscape. I also like the painters who worked during the development
of abstraction people like Arthur Dove,
Georgia O'Keefe and Charles Burchfield--he's tremendous. Of the more recent painters, I like
Rothko, Agnes Martin and Rackstraw
Downes. And in contemporary painters, I
like to look at Andrea Bellage--she received a Guggenheim this year--and Amy
Sillman.
Nancy Van Deren
View Nancy Van Deren's artworks for sale in
BIDDINGTON'S CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY
Price Range: $300-$3000
Exhibitions of Van Deren's paintings (abbreviated list):
1998--OK Harris Gallery (NYC)
1997--AIR Gallery (NYC)
1997--Joe Rain Gallery (Dublin)
1996--Parrish Art Museum (Southampton, NY)
1996--Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation (also grant recipient)
1979-1985--Sarah R. Rentschler Gallery (NYC)
1972 & 1974--Whitney Museum Annual (NYC)
Van Deren Teaching & Lectures (abbreviated list):
The Isamu Noguchi Museum 1993-2001
Sarah Lawrence College--1999 guest artist lecture
Rhode Island School of Design--1998 winter session
University of California, Berkeley--1974-1975
Comments?
ABOUT THIS FEATURE
CREATIVE PROCESS at Biddington's is designed as a forum for watching art in the making. Usually, this process happens in the privacy of the artist's studio. At BIDDINGTON'S--Contemporary Art Gallery & upmarket, online art & antiques auctions--we find it interesting to witness the steps leading to the end product and to hear the artists speak about their work in the relaxed surroundings of their own studios.
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