Sam Bartman & Laura Von Rosk

Painted Terrain

 

Artist Statements

 

Sam Bartman: As I painted, nothing was forced and there was no expectation of what the outcome was going to be.

 

It's about getting used to using different products and tools and seeing what would happen.  

 

Experimenting with different materials and processes I could see what the products could throw back at me.  Then I looked forward, and as I went along, I would learn what would happen.

 

I often worked on more than one painting at a time and often one painting would lead to the next in technique and subject matter.

 

My intention for the work is that each individual person has their own experience to see what they saw in the painting.  Some paintings can be shown in all four directions and something different seen each way.

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Laura Von Rosk: These small-scale paintings (12” average) depict experiences of specific places, as well as responses to other artworks, which could include contemporary artists, early 20th Century American painters, Italian and Northern Renaissance works, or Persian and Indian manuscript paintings.

 

They come from my love of miniaturization, intricacy, the plasticity of paint, and the illusion of space. Images are constructed by mixing elements of landscape and natural forms with memory and imagination.

 

Forms are repeated, emphasized, and manipulated to create tension between the “imagined” and the real world. The forms (lakes, ditches, fields, etc.) come from not just what I see, but what I know about constructing paintings and some deep memory system... There may be a story hidden there, which I myself am still only vaguely aware of.

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Biography:

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Sam Bartman describes himself as an outsider and self taught experimentalist.

 

His keen observations and fearless manipulation of materials and imagery result in engaging and beautiful expressionistic paintings that are bold, skillful and exuberant.

 

Bartman's self referenced pieces are never copied from sketches or site painted, but spontaneously mined from his continual visual grazing and mental store house, both conscious and subconscious.

 

Mixing resins, varnishes, automotive paints, and artist oils with water based materials, he practiced a visual and technical alchemy with his "special sauce" that enhanced drying and made reproducible chemical reactions that inspired his visual experiments. 

 

Painting for almost 60 years with the same focus and tenacity he used as a business owner, Bartman created over 2000 pieces.   His exclusive practice of painting on 17"x 17" repurposed reflective plastic sheets lent itself to wide investigation of imagery and surface within a unifying visual structure and discipline.

 

He has shown in group shows since the early 1990's, in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island. His first solo exhibition, a retrospective, filling the three galleries at Gallery 66 in Cold Spring, NY, was presented in 2017.

 

Sam Bartman was born in 1922, in Brooklyn, NY.  He currently lives in Greenwich, CT.

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Laura Von Rosk earned her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from SUNY at Purchase.

 

Her paintings have been exhibited nationally in both solo and group shows. Her awards include a New York Foundation for the Arts Painting Fellowship; an Individual Artist Support Grant from the Pollack-Krasner Foundation; an artist Fellowship Grant from the Bernheim Foundation in Clermont, KY; and residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; Centrum, WA; Dorland Arts Colony, CA; NY Mills Cultural Center, MN; Acadia National Park, ME; and in New York: Yaddo; Blue Mountain Center; and the Millay Colony.

 

In the autumn of 2011 and 2015 Von Rosk traveled to Antarctica to work with biologist Dr. Sam Bowser and his research team. She was there to assist with their scientific research and dive teams and, in one way or another, incorporate this experience into her work as a visual artist. Some of her recent paintings stem from her experience living and working in Antarctica.

 

Curator: Bibiana Huang Matheis 

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