Etudes by Franny Golden

Etudes by Franny Golden
ETUDES Paintings by Franny Golden

Little Gorgeous Things will present a showing of paintings by noted artist/instructor Franny Golden from July 31 to August 26, 2007, with a reception on Friday, August 3, from 7pm-9pm.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Artist Franny Golden is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship in London and has won numerous national and international prizes including two Ragdale Foundation Residency Fellowships, a Vermont Colony Residency Fellowship, a Brisons Veor Cornwall (England) Residency Fellowship, and a Villa Moltavo (California) Residency Fellowship.

A noted instructor of painting,at Cape Cod Community College for over 20 years, she has taught painting at the Provincetown Art Association for nearly 10 years, the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill for 5 years, and the Massachusetts College of Art. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Cape Museum of Fine Arts, where she had a one-woman show in 2003. Her work resides in many private and museum collections throughout the world.

Ms. Golden has lived and painted in Istanbul, Turkey from 1990-1994, and currently divides her time between Cape Cod and France, where her solo exhibit at the Musee de la Boite is currently running in the village of Francescas, Lot-et-Garonee. Golden maintains a 13th century residence/atelier. Her oil paintings reflect her travels to exotic locales, particularly her period of painting and living in Eastern Europe, as evidenced in her large colorful oil-on-paper works of mosque (camii) interiors in Istanbul and Bulgaria, as well as her intricately detailed oils of Kilim rug patterns. Another aspect to her varied palette is Ms. Golden's still lifes of richly detailed fruits -- pomegranates, star fruits, pears, watermelons, figs, peaches, and crab apples -- in charcoal on paper drawings and densely luscious abstract oils.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

"As a painter I am committed to process as a necessary part of personal individualization, and as a necessary part of the completed painting. So my paintings reveal that process; lines, drawings, failed efforts remain -- emerging through the layers. They are variations of still lives, interiors, portraits -- increasingly more abstract. They are visual journals -- the dates of completion being their titles. They are from times and moments in my life; I can look at every painting I ever made and tell you all about life at the time it was painted, and in particular, some pretty astonishing, emotive, indelible stories from the recent three-and-a-half years of having lived and painted and taught in Turkey.

"Turkey has obviously influenced my painting and, to a certain extent, facilitated a more abstract direction. I am a walker, a transportation maven. So it was difficult to miss much -- sounds of soprano voices, smells of grilled food, untold textures, saturated colors, flowing patterns. And gold: lots of it!

"In addition to the process, there is the repetition of form, color and gold paint. Almost certainly some forms are archetypal--probably personal statements about being a woman. (Although it is difficult to articulate such a statement, it is something I feel.) The hues, the forms, the gold are, as well, manifestations of Turkey; the sphere, the dome, the arch are clearly architectural--ubiquitous here. The sphere has also come to symbolize the abundance of profuse, volumptuous fruit, as well as the hot, relentless sun.

"Academically--intellectually--I want to take these forms and use them as color. And take these colors and use them as form. It is critical to work both of these elements at the same level, on the same picture plane; to work elements as intervals, as in music--or even in mathematics. Hopefully, then, the harmony, the motion--and the necessary tension--will work indivisibly toward an expressionistic composition."