statement

My paintings, in pastel on Wallis museum grade paper, have twin goals of celebrating realism and re-invigorating portraiture. After fifteen years of self-portraiture, I am able to expand my boundaries to include family members, thanks to the use of photography. With this medium, I am able to capture images of far-flung family members that allow me to pictorially explore classic family dynamics. The resulting compositions can be, at once, compelling and disturbing. The mother/daughter, and sibling relationships inspire paintings that potentially mine the universal complexities of family interactions.

My painting style has been refined through years of study of seventeenth century pastel portraiture. Artists like Rosaba Carriera, and Maurice Quentin de la Tour, and the painter Caravaggio have inspired several of my recent paintings. My goal is to seduce the viewer with elegant realism and pastel's soft, sensual surface while manifesting a twenty-first century psychological wallop. The subjects of my portraits may be clothed in contemporary dress or draped in alluring period costume. In either case the naked inner self is often revealed.

I believe that the universality of the human condition expressed in portraiture makes for compelling art. Specifics of individual's lives will vary but the commonalities of the birth, life and death cycle permeate everyone's experience. The best portraiture, which I strive for, explores these life passages in a way that celebrates the beauty of the human experience.

bio

born: 1951, Franklin, Indiana

education

University of Louisville, MA, 1983
Columbus College of Art and Design

selected awards/honors

 National Portrait Gallery, National Portrait Gallery Competition, Commended Award, 2009
Camargo Foundation Fellowship, 2000
The Mac Dowell Colony Fellowship, 1996,1997
Yaddo Fellowship, 1993

selected publications

Speed Art Museum, Gaela Erwin:Facing the Subject, Speed Art Museum catalogue, Louisville, KY, 2006
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Narcissus in the Studio, Catalogue. p?, 2009
Ogunquit Museum of Art, Catalogue, Gaela Erwin: Self-Portraits, 2002
Georgia Review, Volume LIX No. 2, Cover and pgs.352-360, 2005

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Gaela Erwin: Facing the Subject, Speed Art Museum,Louisville, KY, 2006
Gaela Erwin: Self-Portrait as Saints, gescheidle Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, 2003
Encounters: Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama, 2002
Malerei, Zeichnung, Oberpfälzer Kunzlerhaus, Schwandorf, Germany, 1991

selected group shows

Pennsylvania Academy of Art, Narcissus in the Studio, Philadelphia, PA, 2010
Laguna Art Exhibition, A Broken Beauty, two year traveling exhibition, California, Texas, and Canada,2005
Chicago Art Expo; Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois, 2004
Talent, Allan Stone Gallery, NewYork, New York, 1999, 2000