"ABRAHAM ELTERMAN: NEW PAINTINGS AND WORKS ON PAPER"
2001-01-02 until 2001-01-31
Bergamot Station Art Center, Robert Berman Gallery, D5 Projects
Santa Monica, CA, USA United States of America

Abraham Elterman's paintings are bold and somewhat confrontational abstract images that take their cue from the glossy and glitzy billboard advertising images that we see everyday: oversized shapes, shimmering surfaces and sensuous forms are some of the features my images share with their commercial counterparts.

It is perhaps this association with the imagery of popular culture where his work begins to explore the struggle between the darkest forces within oneself; what you are versus everything that your environment says you should be and what you wish to be yourself. While the titles are not to be taken as literal descriptions of the images, they speak of the painting's core issues and create, as a group, a highly emotive mood. One piece that looks like a huge gaping mouth is entitled The Devastating Ravages of Jealousy. Another in a similar vein is named The Seduction of Impossible Wishes.

Elterman has stated that his images are not necessarily pretty and they are not supposed to be. It is his wish that even in their difficulty, a certain beauty can be found in an attempt to reconcile one's aspiration to live up to what the world tells us about youth and appearance versus honoring the part of ourselves that is not particularly all that beautiful.

Abraham Elterman is based in San Francisco. He holds a PhD in Biophysics from UC Berkeley, and began painting 15 years ago around the age of 35. Since then, he has shown in galleries on both coasts as well as in Mexico and abroad.

IMAGE:
Abraham Elterman
The Devastating Ravages of Jealousy,
oil on canvas,
60 x 72,
2000.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of California

Other Important Exhibitions in California