GLENN GOLDBERG

In this group of three new etchings, Glenn Goldberg delves deeper into his fictive world inhabited by elements of nature. Growing up in New York City, the artist suffered from what he has called "nature deprivation syndrome." Finding little inspiration in the concrete jungle, he turned to his imagination to create a world of his own: full of the flowers, birds, and other forms that became his "personal soul feeders".  

In all three etchings, the artist uses both the delicate etching lines in hard ground, and a range of tonal variations in aquatint: from soft grays to bold blacks. Goldberg calls nature an "important guiding force", and it shows up here in these works with a kind of symbolic, mysterious presence. The artist has said: "I believe in the experimental aspect of making work and living". In watching the artist work in the print shop on his etching  plates, I could see his working method up close. His sense of play is combined with a patient deliberation. 

The layering of imagery in the prints, like scrims in an imaginary theater, creates an almost theatrical space, where the figures of the birds move in and out. In making his compositions, Goldberg is also interested in the "semantics of forming." This idea explores how a line or shape acquires its meaning and/or reference. The threshold of recognition between a simple line and its ability to become a form like a bird, or a flower, or a star, is like a dubbing process. The meaning unfolds the longer we explore these prints.  

With these new etchings, Goldberg creates a passage to ponder the subjects coming into being, and with it, the sense that we have arrived there together.

— Andrew Mockler