An Artist Statement
My abstract works evoke a sense of location and proximity to nature like the ravines and rivers in aerial views of landscapes, wave formations in the oceans, or rock strata in cliffs and canyons. My paintings are a synthesis of references from geography, my immersion in the landscape, the light which has produced my perceptions of nature and, most importantly, what I invent from using liquefied colors at various viscosities. Edges of forms and color meet, overlap or merge, complement or obliterate each other suggesting the motion and evolution of the natural world. Shifts of color and iridescent mediums within the finished paintings create reflections and forms that vary with the viewer’s vantage point. My paintings record my experience of nature without the need to unify representationally the details of nature.
Marjorie Minkin
Of
the Lexan works: "these unpredictable objects made of space
age plastic are unequivocally paintings, not reliefs or sculptural
constructions, despite their refusal to remain planar rectangles
and despite their aggressive demands on space - their muscular arching
away from the wall, their sunken hollows, and their rippling edges.
Minkin's language is purely optical, pictorial, painterly, no matter
how much her pictures depend on real, three-dimensional inflections
and on the properties of materials usually associated with sculpture."
"Minkin's narrow, vertical pictures can read as fragile, weightless
sheets blown against the wall, crumpled and momentarily held in
place by a puff of wind. But their confrontational verticality and
their human scale and proportions can also invoke classical torsos,
fragmented by the passage of time, here updated and regenerated
in wholly modern materials and contemporary language. Everyone's
associations will be different, of course."
Karen Wilkin, NY
[to read the entire essay, click here.]
"Since
the mid-eighties, Minkin has worked simultaneously on the Lexan
wall pieces and the acrylic canvases. In many ways they can be seen
as two different approaches, although some of the process and certainly
much of the artistic vision overlaps. In both, transparency and
the rendering of light is a primary goal but it was only until recent
developments in the technology of acrylic mediums and through experimentation
that Minkin could achieve the translucency she was seeking in her
canvas work. She has expanded her practice of suspending colored
pigments in clear resins on the plastic to her paintings on canvas
to accomplish this surface transparency."
"In the Lexan work and the acrylic paintings, Minkin's interpretation
of the world is both intuitive and rational. Her process relies
upon skilled technical capabilities and informed decision-making,
yet incorporates the possibility of chance. These techniques take
full advantage of the properties inherent in the materials--such
as the malleability of the heated plastic and the flow of the poured
acrylic mediums--to evoke the forces of nature, giving viewers the
opportunity for their own intuitive response."
Sue
Scott, NY [to read the entire essay click here.]
"Marjorie Minkin explores the effects possible through the interaction
of light with her materials. Her acrylic paintings, on either canvas
or heat formed Lexan [clear polycarbonate plastic], use the vocabulary
of abstraction to express movement and natural forms. The paintings
may allude to the human figure and landscape, yet rarely so overtly
as to become truly "representational works." Our perception of form
and color...reflected and refracted, applied or implied...shifts
as we move or the light changes."
Christopher
White, Maine
New York City based art critic and essayist Piri Halasz publishes this thoughtful and extensive journal both on line and in a print subscription version. She has on a number of occasions commented favorably on Marjorie Minkin's art.
From the Mayor's Doorstep
"Marjorie
Minkin uses Lexan, a rigid plastic, which she heats and shapes sculpturally
and, on the other side of which she paints. The result is a strong
torso- like form which is both transparent and reflective, iridescent
and translucent. These pieces dance on the wall. Minkin has made
lush paintings on canvas, which are full of gorgeous color, but
these Lexan pieces have a special freshness and originality. Their
transparency and cast shadows make their boundaries dissolve. they
are the most luminous paintings imaginable."
Kenworth
Moffett, CT