Fern Apfel – Taking Attendance

Taking Attendance 
2020
Acrylic & pen on wood panel
20 x 24 x 1.5 inches 

Apfel’s paintings are about tracking the days of our lives. What we did when, who we saw, wrote to, thought about. Now, more than ever, during this critical time – this enormous pause in our lives, we count and consider each day. The envelopes and letters in her pictures are old and worn. Some have been repeatedly folded, others stashed out of sight for years. Some offer nostalgic reminders of things that no longer exist; others are from bygone friends. These images represent relationships that were maintained across distances and referential dialogues extending through many years. In old letters we find loved ones, parents, old friends, and our old selves. As an inquiry into the complexities of our relationships and sense of place, the interplay between what is written and what is left bare, challenges us to think about what we keep and what we cast off. Here, surprisingly, abstraction and narration go together. Apfel’s paintings present life not as then versus now, but as an inescapable circle of time and memory and a lasting reminder of our human connections. 

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