Ginnie Gardiner’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the US since 1985. Gardiner received her B.F.A. from Cornell University in 1974. She is widely known for her practice of creating collages that serve as studies for her paintings. In 1997 Gardiner curated a collage group exhibition titled The Re-Associated Image, at Flanders Contemporary Art in Minneapolis, MN. Her collages and collage-based paintings have been shown in many exhibitions at Pavel Zoubok Gallery, including, And I Quote, 1998, Talking with Tiepolo, Solo Exhibition, 2000, Collage, Signs and Surfaces, 2005, The New Collage, 2006, Daughters of the Revolution: Women & Collage, 2009 and In Translation: Austin, Deem, Gardiner, 2010. In 2018 she had a solo exhibition at the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum titled The Color Prophesies. Gardiner’s work was featured in the exhibition, unfoldingobject, curated by Todd Bartel, at the Concord Center for the Visual Arts, Concord, MA, in 2019. In 2021 she had a Solo Exhibition, 'GINNIE GARDINER: INTERLUSION: Recent Painting and Collage, at the Carrie Chen Gallery in Great Barrington, MA and a Two -Person Exhibition, 'ECHO: Ginnie Gardiner & Amy Talluto, Recent Painting and Collage, at the Albany International Airport Art & Culture Program Gallery, that runs through April 25th, 2022. Current exhibitions include Complex Muses, also curated by Todd Bartel, at the Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, MA from May to September 2022 and RADIUS 50, at the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, July through September 2022. 2023 exhibitions include Putting it Together, Collage Group show, The Lockwood Gallery, Kingston, NY, April 15 - May 14, These Days, Annual Members Show, Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, March 11 - April 16, Driven to Abstraction, Group Show, The Lockwood Gallery, Kingston, NY, March 4 - 26, In Pursuit of Color, The Lockwood Gallery, Kingston, NY, May 27th - June 18, Unconnected Yet, Group exhibition, Curated by Tod Bartel, Talin Megherian, Daniela Esponda and Teri Henderson, Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata, India, Featured Active Members' Group Show, The Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, Woodstock, NY, July 28 - September 24, Radius 50: Intimate Immensity, The Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, Woodstock, NY, July 28 - September 24.
Statement
The main components of my recent subject matter in the Interspace Series are selected fragments from my photographs of space and various objects, cut and/or folded, and hand painted and printed papers. As a painter and collage artist, my Interspace series explores the translation of three dimensional paper shapes into two dimensional color designs, in a further exploration of the relativity of color, figure/ground and negative spaces. With these fragments I compose abstract compositions. These studies for my large scale oil paintings are focused on space, shapes, shadow and light.
For many years I have been absorbed in the process of creating the illusion of transparency in my paintings. With oil paints I mix separate notes of color to approximate light as it is reflected or refracted on various planes observed in nature and man-made objects. This process has continued with the Artifact and Interlusion Color Series. My central concern in The Artifact Color Series, begun in 2018, is the concept of phenomenal transparency; I employ opaque mixtures to achieve the illusion of transparency in the medium of oil paint. These are inspired by Josef Albers’ Homage to the Square series and are collages created with painted woodblock papers. They are the oil paint mixtures from current paintings, influenced by the seasons and local weather.
The Interlusion Series, begun in 2019, combines the Artifact Color Series collages with a return to trompe l’oeil paint handling in the interest of capturing subtle gradations of veils of color as they arc and flow over the compositions of the Artifact Color Series with some transparency. Interlusion blends two or more sensibilities of spatial and atmospheric relationships in two dimensions to capture the transparency effects and the multiple layers of colors and their interactions. The sense of atmosphere between the layers imparts a feeling of landscape to these paintings.