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ABOUT MY WORK, ALL, EVERYTHING ELSE Leslie Parke ABOUT MY WORK, ALL, EVERYTHING ELSE Leslie Parke

CLEMENT GREENBERG AND JACKSON POLLOCK, and a Defining Exhibition at Bennington College

The mid-20th century witnessed a seismic shift in the landscape of American art, with the emergence of Abstract Expressionism marking a departure from European traditions and establishing New York as a new global art center. At the heart of this transformative period were two towering figures: Clement Greenberg, a highly influential art critic whose formalist aesthetic shaped the discourse around modern art, and Jackson Pollock, an artistic innovator who revolutionized painting with his energetic "drip" technique

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ABOUT MY WORK, ALL Leslie Parke ABOUT MY WORK, ALL Leslie Parke

ABSTRACT OR REPRESENTATIONAL : Depends on the Source of the Light

My paintings are about  light.

When I paint representationally and I am about the business of rendering light, I often choose a subject that is backlit. It seems to offer the most extensive and complex qualities of light - light on a surface, passing through a surface, reflecting off of a surface, often highlighting transparency, translucency, reflection, or glitter.

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ALL, ABOUT MY WORK Leslie Parke ALL, ABOUT MY WORK Leslie Parke

"WHAT ARE YOU PAINTING?" "GARBAGE." "NO, WHAT ARE YOU PAINTING?"

Yes, I really am painting garbage. I didn't set out to paint garbage. I didn't wake up one morning and say painting garbage would be a good thing to do. Instead, while walking near a friend's house in Sasebo, Japan, I passed the recycling center. In it they were moving bales of recycled paper to prepare them for transport. The image of their surface was striking to me, like a Harnett trompe l'oeil painting, and the structure of the bales made me think of Don Judd's boxes.

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