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Still life or landscape, abstract or representational; Ellen Berman’s new series of paintings, Domestic Landscapes, defies categorization. Requiring the viewer to let go of traditional ideas of genre painting, these works clearly demonstrate the talent of an artist who has tackled each genre, and has now combined them in a way that truly elevates the ordinary to the extraordinary.
Best known for her still life paintings of common, everyday objects, Ellen Berman’s new work incorporates the same subject matter (fruits, vegetables, flowers, etc.), only this time these familiar items no longer sit isolated on an ambiguous tabletop. Instead we find these objects flattened and abstracted to become flora and fauna, striped, and fruit-printed tablecloths. The solidity of the produce, bowls, and plates evident in her earlier works is now replaced by the fluidity of cloth.
Whether folded in piles or undulating across a hidden plane, the tablecloths are transformed into abstract landscapes through Ms.
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Berman’s thoughtful handling of pattern, light, and scale. Yet however abstract, she always makes it apparent that these are interior scenes by including windows that hint at a world beyond or by leaving a sliver of table exposed. You know that you are inside, presumably in what could be your own kitchen or dining room. In one sense these are everyday scenes of domesticity, and yet they are so much more. The dichotomy within Ms. Berman’s paintings can best be expressed in two words, Domestic Landscapes.
Ellen Berman’s paintings have been exhibited at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont; Laguna Gloria Museum, Austin; South Texas Institute for the Arts, Corpus Christi; The Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City; and she has an upcoming 2005 exhibit at the Beeville Art Museum, Beeville, Texas. In 1988 she was the recipient of the Mid-America Arts Alliance/National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Award in painting. A former Houstonian, Ms. Berman now resides in Wimberley, Texas.
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 Interactive Exhibition
Ellen Berman 2004 Bio
Major Exhibitions
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