April Gornik at Allen Memorial Art Museum

Wednesday, 24 May 2006 10:56

Oberlin, Ohio - The Allen Memorial Art Museum is delighted to bring April Gornik, one of Northeast Ohio’s own, to Oberlin College.  The exhibition April Gornik: Paintings and Drawings, features the work of the Cleveland born artist, now based in New York.  Although Gornik is well known for her beautiful landscapes and has exhibited widely both in the United States and abroad, this is her first Ohio museum show.  Exhibition through June 4, 2006.

April Gornik: Paintings and Drawings highlights more than 20 works ranging in date from the early 1980s to the present.  Large-scale paintings that communicate a sense of wonder and awe in the presence of the natural world are paired with smaller, more intimate oils and intense charcoal drawings.

Light plays a central role in Gornik’s work, and she often creates surreal and mystical landscapes that reflect her personal exploration of the world.  Although Gornik uses photography and the computer as part of her working process, in the end it is her celebration of painting and drawing that make her landscapes so compelling.  Gornik says that the act of painting “holds within itself the history, time, and tale of its formation…  The object speaks to us in its physicality, and our response is an affirmation of our own physicality, a connection and an interface of time and space, intent and emotion.”

The selection of works in this exhibition were chosen from a mid-career survey of April Gornik’s work organized by Dede Young, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College.

Visit The Allen Memorial Art Museum at : www.oberlin.edu/allenart