Connie Goldman: Genea

October 5–November 16, 2017

Chandra Cerrito Contemporary is pleased to announce two concurrent solo exhibitions of works by Bay Area artists Connie Goldman and Mikey Kelly from October 5 to November 16, 2017. Paintings by these two Bay Area artists explore contemporary abstraction and color as well as motion, in both metaphorical or optical terms.

In Connie Goldman's new body of work entitled Genea, the artist further explores the "tenuous equilibrium" in which human beings and everything in the universe exist.  "Genea," from the Greek, means "to become, to emerge, to transition from one point to another."  It suggests change and growth, which are inextricably linked.

Through a restrained formal language of color planes, angular shapes, and straight lines, Goldman's oil paintings on dimensional panels express subtle shifts and implied movement, however glacial its pace.  Shapes fold on themselves, lines dart through to connect discrete planes or segment monochromatic ones, surfaces are faceted, jutting forward and back.  Colors are both in tension and in harmony with one other at the same time.  

These are slow paintings-slow in the making as well as in the viewing.  A quick glance may register two planes when there is actually a single one in two tones.  Something seen first as a shadow may reveal itself to be a recessed portion of the painted object.  Surprising colors on the edges offer delightful moments of discovery.  What may first seem simple and quiet becomes complex and energized, or vice versa.  Even the experience of these works does not stay the same.

About the Artist

Connie Goldman was born in El Paso, TX and lives in Petaluma, CA.  She earned an MFA in painting and drawing from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BA in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin.  Goldman's work has been exhibited internationally, including in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Holland, New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.  Her work is in public and private collections including the Laguna Beach Art Museum, the El Paso Museum of Art, and Neiman Marcus.  Goldman taught at San Francisco State University, San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, and Santa Rosa Junior College for the better part of two decades.  This is Goldman's second solo exhibition at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary.