Troubled Waters: An Exhibition and Gallery Talk

Artist Anne Seelbach at Stamford’s PMW Gallery

By Carolee Ross

Troubled Waters
by
Anne Seelbach
oil on canvas, 26x26" framed

             Anne Seelbach’s new series of works, “Troubled Waters,” on exhibit at PMW Gallery, Stamford, Connecticut, are a protest against the despoiling of the environment. It’s not the typical protest art, brewed tough and bitter and aggressively obvious in the execution. Instead, Seelbach’s work whispers her message in subtle colors and textures and at first, the viewer is enchanted by the multiplicity of the venues within the works.

What is, and always has been, the function of art and artist? Perhaps art’s deepest impulses are rooted in a desire to clarify and reflect the historical space in which we exist. These artists are mirrors of their society and their times; they express the anxieties of their age in a world beset by more ills than Job could have envisioned.

The artist writes in a clarifying statement: “My work addresses the pollution that is in many of our water systems. Toxic chemicals and industrial waste contaminate streams, lakes, bays and oceans. The “Troubled Waters” paintings reflect this conflict between the laws of nature and artificial attempts to control the environment. Gaskets and other mechanical shapes are incorporated into the paintings, representing human presence and industrial waste. Debris crowds the waters. Fish mutate into imaginary forms. A change is taking place as nature reacts to this disruption.”

Troubled Waters #13
by Anne Seelbach
oil on canvas
26 x26 Framed

Inherent in the rhythmic beauty of Anne Seelbach’s piece are some interesting contradictions. Wresting textural effects from the ringed loops that not only hold six-packs of beer and soda together but choke sea creatures to death, she assigns them new life as sculptural forms, dissociating them from their original context and consecrating  them as art.



Troubled Waters #8
by
Anne Seelbach
oil on canvas,
36x40" framed



Seelbach continues: “I am interested in the tension between representation and abstraction; perspective drawing versus free-form washes and geometric shapes versus atmospheric color fields. I use these oppositions to create a tension between three-dimensional illusion and a flattening of space. Gestural brushwork and rich colors are dominant. Layered paint creates subtle colors and textures.”

The Artist’s Background

                Anne Seelbach received a BA from New York University and an MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York. She was a Painting Fellow at the Radcliffe (Bunting) Institute, Harvard University. She has developed her work at the MacDowell Colony, Triangle Artists’ Workshop, the Griffis Art Center, New London, Connecticut and I-Park, East Haddam, Connecticut. International art residencies include the Centrum Frans Masereel, Kasterlee, Belgium, Frauenmuseum, Bonn, Germany, and the Griffis-Orpheus Foundations’ artist exchange program in Sofia, Bulgaria.

              Her work is included in the permanent collections of The Newark Museum NJ, Lyman Allyn Museum CT and the Frauenmuseum, Bonn, Germany. She is also represented in many corporate collections including: Pfizer Inc., Prudential Insurance and XTO Energy as well as private collections in the United States and Europe.

Artist’s Walk and Talk

                Anne Seelbach will give an artist’s Walk and Talk Sunday, June 17 at noon at PMW Gallery, 530 Roxbury Road, Stamford, Connecticut, 06902. Call 203 322 5427. There is no fee, but it is suggested that you call ahead to confirm your attendance.

Trouble Waters series:
Cut-out #7 26.75 x 16.25 unframed, tempera on paper

                To learn more about Anne Seelbach’s artworks, visit her website at www.anneseelbach.com.