An exhibit of sculptures by Barbara Pearlman will be installed at the Gallery in the Field from November 1, 2009 - January 3, 2010, with an opening reception and question-and-answer session with the artist on Sunday, November 1 at 2 PM.
Pearlman earned international fame as a fashion illustrator, working in New York for Neiman Marcus, and in Paris for Europe’s leading fashion publications, including editorial work for Paris Vogue, Bazaar, Marie Claire, Jardin des Modes, Elie and Italian Vogue.
At the peak of her career she shifted away from commercial illustration and began her life in fine art, breaking free from her signature line and her design expertise. At length, her art became a synthesis of rigorous structure and pure invention..
Her work has moved from early large-scale charcoal drawings on floor-to-ceiling banners of vellum, through a series of oil and acrylic paintings that became increasingly abstract, to her current figurative sculpture. The power of the sculpture is in its co-joining of form and expression, as if form itself mutates like some genetic adaptation or like a dream-exaggeration to embody feeling or idea. The human body becomes the prima materia through which her artist’s findings and insights are set forth. An arm is a wing is a weapon is a shield. The human body becomes, in Pearlman’s hands and in her imagination, a poetic and ever-shifting metaphor.
Gallery in the Field
685 Arnold District Road (just off Route 7)
Brandon, VT
802-247-0125
Hours: Sat & Sun 1-5 and by appointment
Images:
Left: Blue Woman, 2007, 46 x 14 x 9.5", clay, wire, steel, oil paint
Right: Blue Man, 2007, 42 x 13.5 x 11", clay, wire, steel, oil paint
