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April Issue 2008
Elder Gallery in Charlotte, NC, Features
Works by Carl Plansky
Elder Gallery in Charlotte, NC, will present the exhibit, Carl Plansky, Abstract Expressionist, on view from Apr. 4 - 29, 2008.
As a youth, Plansky greatly admired the New York School of painting. When he moved to New York as a young artist in the 1960s he was able to meet, befriend, and learn from many of his heroes including Willem de Kooning and his wife Elaine, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell and Phillip Guston.
During his early years in New York City, in an effort to economize, Plansky ground pigments and created his own oil paints. As his paintings were exhibited around the city a number of artists were captivated by the beauty of his paint and asked that he provide paint for them. He was soon able to supplement his income through the sale of oil paints. Eventually, the demand for his paint provided the opportunity to found Williamsburg Paint Company which today has become one of the leading providers for artists' oil paints.
Bordering on abstraction, Plansky's paintings evoke the innate tension between stability and movement. Applying paint with large brushes, rags, and a plasterer's trowel, Plansky uses brash, voluptuous strokes to build up his paint so that certain areas of his paintings are thickly coated while others are almost bare. The activated surface of the canvases works to unsettle any fixed, stationary view of his work. Every piece invites the viewer's eye to wander freely after each fluid motion.
Plansky's exhibition at Elder Gallery contains approximately twenty-five paintings that reflect the artist's unique vision of the New York and Budapest landscape as well as figurative and still life paintings. The artist is inspired by current New York energy and his expressive use of color can be traced back to Van Gogh, Delacroix, Veronese and other masters. His assured handling of oil paint and his obvious enjoyment of this medium's spontaneous effects give his work great drama and immediacy.
Born in 1951, Plansky studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art and the New York Studio School. His work is represented in numerous private and public collections. Plansky has taught or lectured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Chicago Art Institute, Maryland Institute College of Art, Harvard University, Smith College, Bennington College, Northwestern University and other institutions of higher-learning.
Plansky has been featured on CBS Radio's The Osgood File and has been the subject of articles written for The New York Times, The New Republic, Art and Antiques Magazine, Art in America, The New Criterion and others. He currently teaches at the Maryland Institute of Art, lectures around the nation and resides in New York and Budapest.
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