Shifting Gears by Marcie Bronkar

In Retrospect consists of a body of work I created over the last decade that explores three directions of composition and paint handling. Although I will always be a textile designer, it marks my decided shift towards a complete commitment and focus as a painter.

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How do these two pursuits differ?

As a textile designer, I have never second-guessed my decisions. I prepare, organize, research, and study historical documentation and trends while shopping the market constantly. I take the work seriously but never personally. This is a career where your livelihood is directly tied to clients’ preferences.

In 2020, I began painting full-time at home. During long stretches of unstructured time during quarantine, I experimented, mixing the formations of my palettes prior to painting. I am passionate about values, cast, and formulations and began to delve into the dynamic play of colors together, moving them around on my palette. I could mix colors forever.

I feel this show of my paintings represents a personal revelation—and a kind of public exposure, too. It is risky to present work that has been developed privately and held close for so long.

As a painter I work very much in the moment. I plan, think, dream ahead of what I want to accomplish before I enter the studio, yet the process remains very open-ended. I react to the colors, layers, and shapes that appear before me, almost as if they have a life and volition of their own. I become just a spectator or observer of my materials and medium. I find that every color holds their load in the composition. My work has always been an extension of how I view the things around me – the negative and positive space; the play of forms moving and resting against light.

I realize I could never had such a long career in the commercial world if I was not already grounded by my fine art awareness, passions, and convictions. This current scope of work has, in a sense, been in progress all of my life.

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