ABOUT ELAINE GALEN
Internationally-recognized as a painter, sculptor, and educator, Elaine Galen has created an intimate dialogue with nature, using the painting process to explore the mystical, the surreal and the spiritual realm of nature. Though her early work began in the style of Abstract Expressionism, she quickly developed her own distinctive style and evocative visual language.
Elaine’s landscapes are both perfectly abstract and wildly expressionistic, full of raw emotion, pure energy and mysterious beauty. Her landscapes capture the emotional intensity and ever-changing moods of nature where light and color are in constant transition. Paint in her hands is fluid and swift, streaks of brilliant color alternating with open passages.
Her paintings pay homage to the mystical canyons of the American Southwest and ancient deserts of Israel and Jordan. Studies of Boscobel and the Hudson Valley, Southern France and Umbria capture the overwhelming presence of the hills and mountains, valleys and forests of these historically rich and sacred lands.
In her most recent paintings, Elaine uses fragmented, multiple views to expand the visual landscape leaving us with an immediate and contemporary view of nature. Her interpretations of mountains, deserts, and canyons challenge the viewer to see and think beyond their preconceived notions of the natural landscape.
The abstract and the representational collide and merge, as she freely mixes oils, watercolor, graphite, charcoal and other media, juxtaposing divergent colors and shapes for an almost surreal, otherworldly view.
As the critic Gerrit Henry wrote in Art in America, “Galen seems to have taken a leaf from the Abstract Expressionists and upped the intensity of her brushwork, as well as her painterly imaginings… What is exciting about Galen’s paintings is her ability to make the earthly divine.”
EXHIBITIONS AND SHOWS
Elaine’s exhibits have been widely reviewed. She has exhibited her work at numerous solo shows, including museum exhibits at the Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, Neuberger Museum of Art, Tampa Museum of Art, Mississippi Museum of Art, James A Michener Museum in Pennsylvania and others.
Elaine Galen’s paintings and limited edition books are in the permanent collections of many of the above mentioned museums, as well as the University of Arizona Museum, Tucson, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Musee Rigaud, France, New York Public Library (Rare Books), National Liberty Museum of Philadelphia, Wellesley College Special Collections, and others. Corporate collections include AT&T, Pfizer, Metromedia, Continental Grain, and many others.
Her work has been acclaimed by art critics and curators as “hauntingly beautiful” and “powerful” …”bordering on the visionary and surreal” and a “mystical realization of place”.
Elaine lives in Mt. Kisco, New York with her husband, the noted abstract painter, printmaker and publisher, artist Ed Colker.
EDUCATION
University of Pennsylvania, B.A.
Graduate: Philadelphia College of Art
Advanced Study: Art Students' League of New York; Grande Chaumiere, Paris
CIRRICULUM VITAE