Claire Seidl
Not Another Word (2021)
Claire Seidl has been an abstract painter for just over forty years and a photographer for twenty. She grew up in Connecticut and moved to New York City after receiving her BFA from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. She received her MFA in Painting from Hunter College, City University of New York. After teaching in the art department at Hunter College for a decade, Seidl went on to study photography at the International Center for Photography. She then taught in the art department of Hofstra University for five years. She lives and works in New York City and in Rangeley, Maine.
Seidl exhibits nationally and internationally, has had 40 solo shows, and participated in over 100 group shows. She showed her work at ICON Contemporary Art in Brunswick for 25 years. Museum and University venues include: Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Noyes Museum, Columbus Museum, McNay Art Museum, Ewing Gallery at University of Tennessee, Murray State University, KY, Hamilton College, Yeshiva University, Freedman Gallery at Albright College, South Bend Museum of Art, Herron School of Art and Design, Western CT State University, Central CT State University, Haverford College, College of William and Mary, Virginia Commonwealth University, DePauw University, Newcastle Polytechnic in England, Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russian Museum of Photography in Russia, Portland Museum of Art, Ogunquit Museum, University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor, Bates College Museum of Art, University of New England, Maine Museum of Photographic Art at University of Southern Maine, and Center for Maine Contemporary Art
Statement:
In both my painting and photography, I explore the same formal concerns, creating work that draws the viewer in to my world, encouraging contemplation and challenging our perception of the often-thin line between reality and abstracted memory.
I have no pre-conceived ideas or plans when I paint, and adhere to no set of procedural givens. My relationship to painting is not settled, but dynamic and evolving. Each painting is resolved according to its own exigencies and my job is to look hard and long enough to see them. I seek new ways to mesh surface and space convincingly and always look for new pictorial resolutions.
I use mark-making freely and intuitively with a variety of tools including brayers, brushes, spatulas and knives, some of which scrape and gouge the surface creating line and revealing multiple layers of paint.
I focus on the visual, but mine is also a personal response to paint that includes emotion. Previous states and underlying incidents are often veiled, like distant recollections or like things seen briefly and now largely forgotten.
There is darkness in my paintings, and light; speed and stillness; strength and softness. There is color with its attendant associations, and the expression of something uniquely human.
For me, drawing serves as structure; it delineates and connects the layers of space I create on the two-dimensional surface. It is different than, but just as important as elements like color, tone, and texture. Drawing is an expressive way of mark-making or gesturing, something I have been doing for a long time.
EDUCATION
1996-99 International Center of Photography, New York City
1982 MFA, Hunter College, CUNY
1973 BFA, College of Visual and Performing Arts, Syracuse University
1972 Sir John Cass College of Art, London Polytechnic
SELECTED ONE AND TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2022 Symbiosis: Photographs and Paintings of Claire Seidl, Maine Museum of Photographic Arts, University of Southern Maine, Portland
Claire Seidl: Paintings and Photographs, 1GAP Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2018 Icon Contemporary Art (with David Raymond), Brunswick, ME
2017 Otherwhere: Photographs by Claire Seidl, Red Filter Gallery, Lambertville, NJ
2016 Exposures, Long-Sharpe Gallery Project Space, New York, NY
Claire Seidl and Dennis Pinette, Pho Pa Gallery, Portland, ME
2015 Conversation Piece (with John McDevitt King), Van Deb Editions, Long Island City, NY
Icon Contemporary Art (with Amparo Carvajal-Hufschmid), Brunswick, ME2014 Plain Sight, Fox Gallery (with Kim Uchiyama), New York, NY
After Hours, Red Filter Gallery, Lambertville, NJ
Vis-à-vis, The Painting Center (with Emily Berger), New York, NYWhereabouts, Aucocisco Gallery (with Scott Davis), Portland, ME
2013 What Was, Is: Recent Work (with Duncan Hewitt), Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport
2012 Paintings 1988-2012, Icon Contemporary Art, Brunswick, ME
2010 Lesley Heller Workspace, New York, NY
2009 Van Deb Editions, New York, NY
2008 Lesley Heller Gallery, Viewing Room, New York, NY
The Painting Center, Project Room, New York, NY
2007 Lesley Heller Gallery, New York, NY
une Fitzpatrick Gallery, Portland, ME
2006 Icon Contemporary Art, Brunswick, ME
2004 Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, New York, NY
2003 Kristen Frederickson Contemporary Art, Project Room, New York, NY
2002 Icon Contemporary Art, Brunswick, ME
2001 Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, New York, NY
2000 Icon Contemporary Art, Brunswick, ME
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Bates College Museum of Art, Olin Art Center, Lewiston, ME
Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN
Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME
Maine Museum of Photographic Arts, Glickman Library, University of Southern Maine, ME
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, ME
University of New England, Permanent Collection, Portland, ME
U.S. Department of State, Heritage Assets, Art Bank Program, Art in Embassies Program, Qatar
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 Blurring Boundaries: The Women of American Abstract Artists 1936-Present (curated by Rebecca DeGiovanna), Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT, May - September; Peeler Art Center, DePauw University, Greencastle, IN, February - April, 2022; The Freedman Gallery, Albright College, Reading, PA, August - December, 2021; The Baker Museum, Naples, FL, March - July, 2021; South Bend Museum of Art, IN 2021; Clara M. Eagle Gallery, Murray State University, Murray, KY, 2019; Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2018
2022 Digital: American Abstract Artists Prints 2012-2019, Herron School of Art and Design, Indianapolis, IN, January - March; The Gallery at the Visual and Performing Arts Gallery, Western CT State University, Danbury CT, October - December, 2021; Transmitter Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2020
2021 11 Women of Spirit, Zurcher Gallery, New York, NY
2020 - Drawing Challenge VII, Jason McCoy Gallery, New York, NY
2019 Gathering V, ICON Contemporary Art, Brunswick, ME
Everyday Maine, Univ. of New England, Portland, (curated by Bruce Brown and Steven Halpert)
The Way Life Is: Working Families and Communities, UVMA Gallery, (curated by John Ripton and Anne Haas), Portland, ME
25th Anniversary Exhibition, The Painting Center, New York, NY
2018 30th Anniversary Show, Icon Contemporary Art, Brunswick, ME (curated by Duane Paluska)
Photo-A-GoGo, SRO Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (curated by D. Dominick Lombardi)
Everyday Maine, Holocaust and Human Rights Center, University of Maine, Augusta (curated by Bruce Brown)
Some Truths About Chairs, UVMA Gallery, Portland, ME (curated by Robyn Holman and Janice L. Moore)
Why is Art So Difficult, Hooper Mansion, Marblehead, MA (curated by Bernd Haussmann)
America Now, A Dialogue, Lewis Gallery, Portland Library, Portland, ME; and Holocaust and Human Rights Center, Univ. of Maine, Augusta (2017) (curated by Bruce Brown)
Contemporary Portraiture: 2018 Maine Museum of Photographic Art, Glickman Library, University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME (curated by Denise Froehlich)
2017 - Women’s History Month, Marina Adams, Nancy Azara, Andrea Belag, Joanne Freeman, Claire Seidl, Dee Shapiro, Van Deb Editions, Long Island City, NY (curated by Deborah Freedman)
Abstraction, Greenhut Galleries, Portland, ME
Through the Rabbit Hole 2, Sideshow Gallery, Williamsburg, NY (curated by Rich Temperio)
2016 CMCA Biennial, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME (curated by John Yau and Christine Berry)
Abstraction 2016: Color and Surface, Emily Berger, Zhang Hong, Rick Lewis, Claire Seidl, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain (curated by Cassandra Broadus-Garcia)
Chromatic Space, American Abstract Artists, Shirley Fiterman Art Center, BMCC, City University of New York, NY (curated by Jonathan Lippincott)
Gather IV, Icon Contemporary Art, Brunswick, Maine (curated by Duane Paluska)
New Acquisitions, Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME
The Onward of Art, American Abstract Artists, 1285 Ave. of the Americas Gallery, New York City (curated by Karen Wilkin)
Visible Histories, American Abstract Artists, Abrons Art Center, New York City (curated by Max Weintraub)
An Ordinary Day, Hutchinson Center, Belfast, ME (curated by Terry Hire and Jaap Helder)
Through the Rabbit Hole, Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (curated by Rich Temperio)