2016

March 4th - April 16th

PAM GLICK: Thank You For Having Me

March 4 - April 16, 2016

Opening reception, Friday, March 4 6-9pm

BT&C Gallery announces Thank You For Having Me, a solo exhibition of new work by Pam Glick. The exhibition opens Friday, March 4th with a public reception 6-9 pm and will run through April 16th. On Tuesday, April 12th at 6:30 pm, the artist will be speaking about her work.

Thank You For Having Me focuses on Glick’s latest body of work and includes paintings (oil on canvas and tarp) as well as works on paper, equally as fundamental to the artist’s creative practice. Glick’s chosen materials are varied, from the more traditional charcoal, oil paint, and canvas to spray paint, enamel house paint, paint sample cards, and tarp (both cotton and shiny plastic). Drawn to commonplace, hardware store materials, Glick often achieves her visceral brushwork with simple house paint brushes she buys by the bag full.

Accompanying Glick’s large-scale paintings, numerous works on paper, both  drawings and paintings, will be included in a dense installation giving insight into Glick’s process.

Much of Glick’s imagery involves text, though it has often been stretched and manipulated beyond legibility, Glick’s titles clue us in to her original intent. Glick

finds inspiration in language from myriad sources including prophetic phrases from Marilyn Monroe’s diary, rap songs, epic film, poetry, Deepak Chopra and conversations with various people in her life. Popular language also plays a large role—whether encountered in advertisements on the subway, the sidebar on Facebook, or on informational signs in public places, Glick isolates unavoidable language, dominant in the contemporary visual urban landscape. In her work, Glick has skillfully turned the mundane into the unfamiliar, opening up new avenues of reflection upon ubiquitous words and phrases. On canvas, tarp or paper, out of context, Glick has revealed a sort of power—an energy—in these words. By empowering the text, she is also empowering herself as there is a mantra-like quality to much of the chosen text.

The show is titled after one of the large (6 ft square) paintings included. “Thank You For Having Me” is one familiar phrase that Glick has isolated and visually manipulated in this body of work. Paired with an image of a fecund figural form, the phrase takes on layers of meaning embracing a focus on the maternal. No matter the chosen subject, Glick’s canvases and tarps always maintain a geometric structure whether it be as a surface or base layer. This geometry serves to confine and balance an organic, primal energy that at times threatens to spin out of control. Similar to her abstract interpretations of Niagara Falls, a subject that Glick has experimented with for decades, the geometric structure is present even in Glick’s most painterly canvases. Glick explains: Niagara Falls is a subject I’ve been painting off and on since the 80s— it symbolizes home. The pull of the water going over the ledge is a metaphor for both change and inevitability. The geometry of its 45-degree angle and contrasting elements have endless possibilities for me including ideas of stillness, motion, color, repetition, and mystery. The Falls are a paradox, just like Glick’s paintings— at once angular and curved, fluid and still, gorgeous and dangerous.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Pam Glick was formally trained at the Rhode Island School of Design where she received a BA in painting. Glick was widely exhibited during the 1980s and 1990s, most notably in New York City with solo shows at Ramnerine Gallery (Long Island City), White Columns Gallery and Wolff Gallery as well as in group shows at Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. Locally, Glick was a part of the In Western New York exhibition at the Albright-Knox in 1981— the artist’s very first formal exhibition opportunity— and most recently at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center as part of Amid/In Western New York. Glick’s work has also been included in important group shows alongside works by artists such as Jean Michele Basquiat,  George Condo and Christopher Wool. Glick’s work is a part of many collections, both public and private, including the Eli Broad Foundation and Citi Bank. In 1985, Glick moved to Vermont to raise her children and turned her focus to works on paper. Glick has recently relocated back to Buffalo with a renewed interest in oil, which the artist describes as her “first and favorite medium.” Opening March 19th and running through June 13th, Glick is included in the group show CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS v. THE MASTERS: Homage, Battle, Reclamation, at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, VT. Pam Glick’s studio will opened as part of Hallwalls’s special studio brunch series, on Sunday, April 17th. For more information, and to purchase tickets, please visit www.hallwalls.org.