Pam Glick

Formal play typifies Pam Glick’s practice. Hallmarked by her interest in the universal language of abstraction, Glick describes her painting process “as a playground that I set up.” Calligraphic pencil marks disrupt the paint, undermining the grid structure of the canvas; the layers of mark-making adding a cartographical aspect to the work. In The New York Times, Roberta Smith described the paintings as ‘beautiful castoffs, relics of better times, which adds gravity to their improvisational flair.’

 

Glick’s paintings are notable for their improvisational yet rhythmic formal play. In each of her works, she juxtaposes a scrim of geometric patterns with cascades of looping gestural swirls. Reinforcing the square format of the canvas, she suspends an architecture of interconnected vertical and horizontal segments punctuated by arcs, zigs, zips and diagonals. Underlying this scaffolding are broad, free-wheeling swathes of colour interrupted by explosive splatters of pigment. Glick’s paintings, created as distinct series, walk a tightrope between movement and containment, expressiveness and restraint. They can be understood as psychological mappings of nature or depictions of heightened emotional states. Never static, they mark the passage of time, and capture the cyclical rhythms of life. 

 

Born in Albany, Georgia in 1956, Glick studied Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1980, where she was a recipient of the Florence Leif Award. She received her MFA from the University of Buffalo in 2019. Glick’s paintings were widely exhibited during the 1980s and 1990s, most notably with solo shows at White Columns (Josh Baer, Director), Wolff Gallery and Hirschl and Adler in New York and Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles. She was also included in group exhibitions at Pat Hearn Gallery and the Drawing Center in New York. In 1981 Glick was included in the ‘Western New York’exhibition at Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly Albright-Knox Art Gallery). More recently, Glick had a second solo exhibition at White Columns, New York in 2016 and at The Journal Gallery, New York in 2021. 

 

In 1995, Glick moved to Vermont to focus on her young family. During this time, her practice predominately centred around collage and works on paper. In 2019 Glick was awarded an artist residency at BuBu, Budapest, Hungary, culminating in an exhibition at Budapest Art Factory. Glick’s work is included in several collections including Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York; The Broad, Los Angeles, California; Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, New York; The Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation, Los Angeles, California; Deutsche Bank, New York and Citi Bank, New York.