ARTIST STATEMENT
My watercolor paintings combine the tradition of still life with narrative elements exploring themes of confinement, thwarted yearning and looming disaster, subjects that are now too familiar to all of us whose lives have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic. My interest is in "delicate subjects," a term meant not just literally as it applies to insect wings and glassware, but also figuratively, as in a contemplation of the fragility of life or the inevitability of darkness, ideas we usually avoid confronting on a more than occasional basis. My goal is to evoke an atmosphere of disquiet and a sense that the answers to life's most urgent questions might be hidden in plain sight and yet remain unreadable.
Watercolor has a reputation for being unforgiving -- the paint is translucent and the paper is absorbent, so marks made at any point during the process are likely to remain visible in the final result. So, each watercolor painting is a kind of performance, like a music recital where you can’t take back the sounds you make... You can only add to them. One of my goals with the medium has been to make paintings that don’t look like traditional watercolors. To this end, I use fine-grained staining pigments, smooth paper, and for the most part I avoid splashy wet-in-wet effects and grainy, sedimentary textures.
I have also experimented recently with selectively applying watercolor paint via a marbling technique adapted from methods dating back to 16th century Persia and the Ottoman Empire, which in turn may have arisen from an even older sumi ink marbling tradition originating in feudal Japan. In my updated process, a masked sheet of watercolor paper is lightly sprayed with a mordant (aluminum sulfate dissolved in water) and carefully laid on the surface of water thickened with a seaweed extract (carrageenan), upon which floating watercolor paint has been raked into swirls which are picked up by the paper, which is finally rinsed carefully with distilled water to leave only the pigment behind. The resulting patterns echo the delicate structures of butterfly wings, bird feathers, leaves or flowers that I render with traditional watercolor brush techniques in the other untouched areas of the same sheet of paper after the masking is removed. The combined result is easily mistaken for collage, but in fact each hybrid painting is just watercolor paint on a single sheet of paper, combining Eastern with Western traditions of paint application, fortuitous chance with deliberate planning, and the complex interactions of surface tension and fluid dynamics with the meticulous rendering by hand of similarly complex natural forms.
My watercolor paintings combine the tradition of still life with narrative elements exploring themes of confinement, thwarted yearning and looming disaster, subjects that are now too familiar to all of us whose lives have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic. My interest is in "delicate subjects," a term meant not just literally as it applies to insect wings and glassware, but also figuratively, as in a contemplation of the fragility of life or the inevitability of darkness, ideas we usually avoid confronting on a more than occasional basis. My goal is to evoke an atmosphere of disquiet and a sense that the answers to life's most urgent questions might be hidden in plain sight and yet remain unreadable.
Watercolor has a reputation for being unforgiving -- the paint is translucent and the paper is absorbent, so marks made at any point during the process are likely to remain visible in the final result. So, each watercolor painting is a kind of performance, like a music recital where you can’t take back the sounds you make... You can only add to them. One of my goals with the medium has been to make paintings that don’t look like traditional watercolors. To this end, I use fine-grained staining pigments, smooth paper, and for the most part I avoid splashy wet-in-wet effects and grainy, sedimentary textures.
I have also experimented recently with selectively applying watercolor paint via a marbling technique adapted from methods dating back to 16th century Persia and the Ottoman Empire, which in turn may have arisen from an even older sumi ink marbling tradition originating in feudal Japan. In my updated process, a masked sheet of watercolor paper is lightly sprayed with a mordant (aluminum sulfate dissolved in water) and carefully laid on the surface of water thickened with a seaweed extract (carrageenan), upon which floating watercolor paint has been raked into swirls which are picked up by the paper, which is finally rinsed carefully with distilled water to leave only the pigment behind. The resulting patterns echo the delicate structures of butterfly wings, bird feathers, leaves or flowers that I render with traditional watercolor brush techniques in the other untouched areas of the same sheet of paper after the masking is removed. The combined result is easily mistaken for collage, but in fact each hybrid painting is just watercolor paint on a single sheet of paper, combining Eastern with Western traditions of paint application, fortuitous chance with deliberate planning, and the complex interactions of surface tension and fluid dynamics with the meticulous rendering by hand of similarly complex natural forms.
BIOGRAPHY
Pitsker received his BA with distinction from Pomona College, Claremont, CA, in 1985. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and appeared in multiple publication including American Art Collector, American Entomologist, Bootleg Magazine, Studio Visit Magazine, and LA Weekly. He lives and works in Santa Monica, CA.
Pitsker received his BA with distinction from Pomona College, Claremont, CA, in 1985. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and appeared in multiple publication including American Art Collector, American Entomologist, Bootleg Magazine, Studio Visit Magazine, and LA Weekly. He lives and works in Santa Monica, CA.
RESUME
EDUCATION
1985 BA with distinction, Pomona College, Claremont, CA
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020 It's all arranged, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2018 What Lies Within, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2016 What’s clear now, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles CA
2010 Enigmas and Elegies, Left Coast Galleries, Studio City, CA
2006 Borderline States Art Murmur Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2004 Strange Angels, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2019 The Imaginary, Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, CA
2017 Soluble Power, Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, CA
2017 The Cityscape Show, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2015 Group Show, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2012 Recent Work, Swenson Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA
2011 WILDlife, Heather James Fine Art, Jackson, WY
2010 Group Show, James Gray Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2009 Salt Creek Environment: Local and Endangered, Haydon Art Center, Lincoln, NB
2009 La Petite, Left Coast Galleries, Studio City, CA
2009 Group Show, James Gray Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2008 Spirits of L.A., Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, Hollywood, CA
2008 California Visual Artists, 2nd City Council Gallery, Long Beach, CA
2008 Bronze and Brushstrokes, Left Coast Galleries, Studio City, CA
2007 You Are Here, two-person show at Bandini Gallery, Culver City, CA
2007 Bridge Art Fair, with Art Murmur Gallery, Miami, FL
2007 Contemporary Realism, Modern Masters Fine Art, Palm Desert, CA
2007 Art International, The Pasadena Center, Pasadena, CA
2006 Memorias de Comunidad, Highways Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2006 Random Perspectives, Red House Gallery, Venice, CA
2006 Vanitas Now, Art Murmur Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2005 Looking At Art, LAMAG at Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, CA
2004 In America Now, Don O’Melveny Gallery, West Hollywood, CA
2003 Petite works, Gallery 825 Annex at Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA
2003 Turn It Up, The Art Coalition, North Hollywood, CA
2002 Visions International, Art Center Waco, Waco, TX
2002 To Your Credit, Eastern New Mexico University, Roswell, NM
1999 Moving Toward The Millennium, Watts Towers Art Center, Los Angeles, CA
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2020 "Unavoidable Fate," American Art Collector, May 2020, pp 68 - 69
2019 "Conflicts of Interest" issue, Nonprofit Quarterly, Fall 2019, cover and pp. 9, 11, 21, 29
2018 "Impending Disaster," American Art Collector, August 2018, pp 108 - 109
2014 Tierney Brosius, Leon Higley, Lana Johnson, "Promoting the Conservation of the Salt
Creek Tiger Beetle Using the Visual Arts," American Entomologist, Vol. 60 No. 1
2009 Lynne Bahr, "Photographic Effects, Painterly Vision," Watercolor, Spring 2009.
2008 Jenica Jones, "Look Very Close," Bootleg Magazine, No. 37, August, 2008.
2008 Theo Douglas, District Weekly (cover), Vol. 1, Issue 52, Long Beach, April 2008
2008 Studio Visit Magazine No. 2, Open Studios Press, Boston, MA, April 2008.
2008 Raoul De la Sota, "Spirits Of Los Angeles," City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural
Affairs, Los Angeles, CA
2007 Los Angeles Art Show -- Five Centuries of Art," Fine Art Dealers Association, Santa
Monica, CA, January, 2007
2007 Peter Frank, "Art Murmur," Art Murmur Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2006 Linda Ford, "Art Murmur's Borderline States," The Arts District Citizen, May, 2006
2006 Sergio Martinez, "Binaries Lurking In Our Minds," SoCal.com, February 20, 2006
2002 Shirle Gottlieb, "Arresting Art," Long Beach Press-Telegram, August 23, 2002
Gottlieb, "Art that might stop you in your tracks," Beachweek, August 2002
Gottlieb, "From Metal to Print," Long Beach Press-Telegram, July 5, 2002
"To Your Credit," Jenny Bower, Eastern New Mexico University Roswell Press
1994 Peter Frank, "Art Picks of the Week" for "Underexposed" at LAMAG, LA Weekly, August
12, 1994
