Artist Profiles

The paintings of Anne Seidman are deceptively simple and project themselves beyond their diminutive proportions. Color and form dominate equally and are intuitively created and combined. This relationship forms the core basis of this work. A third element is the understated attention given to surface and texture. In particular this challenges the flat evenness of the color. Look at the painting to the right where the paint texture is far more overt and is so entwined with color as to be indistinguishable from it. All the while a stark contrast is established between the pink upper portion of this piece and the bit of orange and blue that dip into the complex color mixture.

Untitled, Water Media on Board, 15 x 11 in

Although loosely referencing the grid, very few of the lines in these paintings are straight. As a result, and in her own subtle way, Seidman undermines the strict control and imposition of order that come with the grid. The lines created  

Untitled, Water Media on Board, 13 x 11 in

by the division of the forms are bent and distorted just enough to animate the paintings leaving them self-possessed of a sublime innocence.  However, this is in no way distracts from their intelligence.  For example, look at the chromatic range of the represented by the color. In painting after painting Seidman manages to get it just right such as in a comparison of the first two paintings on the next page. The first painting offers a rich array of colors, texture and forms which conspire to chop up the picture plane into a handful of mini-paintings. For example, In the lower right corner the pink, dark blue, light blue and yellow horizontal bands of color create pleasant a little reductive abstract painting within a painting. The second piece on the other hand presents three basic colors with a simple handling and placement that creates an alternating figure/ground relationship. Despite its reductive

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