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January 22 - February 21, 2016
Emerging Unknown
Inge Strack
Painting
Frable Gallery
Opening Reception for the Artists
Fourth Friday, January 22, 2016
7:00-10:00 pm
Free and Open to the Public
Closing Artist Talk
Sunday, February 21, 2016
2:00 pm
Free and Open to the Public
Artist Statement
My paintings consist of bold colors and a deep sense of emotion. I often paint with a limited palette, rather focusing on brushstrokes, texture and form to find a balance.
I am drawn to the drama and the pain connecting us all in our humanity and strive to create beauty out of the most difficult circumstances. I am not attempting to abstract the physical world; I am trying to get to the person behind the mask.
Edvard Munch said: "Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye. It also includes the inner pictures of the soul."
I draw my subject matter from inside of myself hoping to create a constant conversation between the viewer and the painting, especially since abstracts do not seem to answer but ask.
Biographical Details
"Inge Strack is an abstract artist in the European tradition, who has found, in America, the freedom and confidence to express a wide emotional range, through paint.
Her artwork brings together two great traditions in the history of contemporary abstraction. First, stretching back to the first decades of the twentieth century, in Munich, a brilliant circle of artists (the Blaue Reiter group) led by Wassily Kandinsky, painted the first abstract pictures. Kandinsky believed that color and form, together, without reference to things in this world, could best convey the spiritual power of art.
After World War II, in New York, the powerful movement known as Abstract Expressionism projected a new version of abstraction: A painter's personal experience and unconscious were the central drivers of artwork that could be angry (Jackson Pollack) or lyrical (Mark Rothko). Interestingly, two of the most important teachers of this new approach were German exiles: Josef Albers and Hans Hoffman who planted in the U.S. bold ideas about color theory and non-figurative art.
As a native German who dedicated herself to fine art in Virginia, after success in interior design, Inge Strack combines insight from two worlds: She knows, and incorporates into her work, aspects of the cultural legacy of European abstraction, while bringing to her paintings an American intensity, spontaneity, and verve. Strack's paintings have a clear resonance with German expressionism. Yet, a close look at her work finds the raw nerve, and psychological impulse, of American abstraction.
Having committed herself to painting full time in the fullness of life, Inge Strack gives us work that embodies this wisdom: the most joyful expression of life's promise is leavened with awareness of tragedy. Thus, does art elevate."
Eleanor KennellyWashington DC Eleanor Kennelly is an art critic based in Washington, DC who has written for Art and Antiques, Art & Auction, ARTnews, and a variety of European publications.
More at: Inge Strack
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