ARTIST STATEMENT
In this series of paintings, I use the images of birds, in an exploration of time to portray the source and spirit of each soul. I seek to capture the dynamic of flight in a delicate moment of balance, and portray this energy even in stillness.
The winged gestures of birds of prey and hummingbirds intrigue me with their bold determination. Red-winged blackbirds create a world with their haunting song and silhouette shapes like a calligraphic message against the sky. My evolutionary process is to begin with sketches of acrylic wash on rice paper, where the bleeding color of brush strokes creates abstract shapes. On canvas, broad marks portray the reach of an uplifted wing, and the angle of a body, energizing the space around the bird.
I am interested in moments of expanded time that are fleeting, but remain in memory as infinite. Through the images of wild things, birds in flight, animals in motion, I connect to their natural state of freedom, and am compelled to awareness of that which is vanishing from our land.
BIO
Sharon Falk paints luminous images of the natural world, capturing their energy and power as a moment in time. Growing up in the Southwest shaped her sense of space, instilling endless horizons and a palette inspired by desert light. Color glows in and around the forms, creating a sense of movement. Wild animals and birds in flight reflect the power within each of us, navigating our earthbound struggles along a path both arcane and familiar.
Falk earned a BFA from the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, where she received the Paula Rhodes Award. In her early job experience creating graphics and courtroom sketches for television news, she developed a skill to capture images quickly, instilling an instinct for her gestural brush marks that evoke a sense of motion. She has traveled to Egypt, Greece, Peru, Italy, Mexico, and prehistoric caves in the south of France filling sketchbooks with images inspired by the art of those civilizations. In her travels, she makes sketches, later translating them into expansive color fields where wet pigment takes on its own alchemy.
Sharon Falk has taught painting and drawing at Pace University, Bergen Community College and Westchester Community College, and has been in artist residencies in Santa Fe, NM, Woodstock, NY, and Gatlinburg, TN. Since moving to New York, she has exhibited widely in the area, and her work is included in numerous private collections. Falk lives and works in Warwick, NY.
