"Gesture is paramount in the work of Theresa Greenberg which draws upon architecture as both a source of visual motifs and an evocation of an imagined or remembered procession through space." Thomas Mellins, Author/Curator1
I am concerned with the abstraction of color, line, form and space; and with the synergetic relationship between living organisms, landscapes, and architectural constructs. I am haunted and intrigued by dwelling places -- ancient, medieval and modern -- the exteriors and the interiors, the entryways and the exits. Through my often imaginary and highly personal abstractions, I work to create a harmonic setting from nature and the constructed environment.
Eventhough I am a painter, my process is akin to that of a sculptor. I build each visual environment from the ground up -- each time a swatch of color or a line is laid down, a process of reevaluation comes into play. Each new form creates a change in the construct. I work alternately in three mediums -- paper collage, gouache on paper, and oil on canvas and paper; the work on paper combines materials from acquarelle crayon, ink and pastel to pencil and oil pastel. I am constantly exploring the abstract connectedness among the three.
My work has been influenced by such diverse sources as the abstract expressionists of the 1950s, especially Willem and Elaine De Kooning, Joan Mitchell and Franz Kline; blues and jazz artists Ma Rainey, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker; as well as modern architecture including the tropical deco of the 1930s and the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. I am inspired by the simplicity of line in the Paleolithic cave paintings, the mystery in the ancient dwelling places of the Anasazi, and the quiet of nature and the beauty of line and space suggested by the seventeenth and eighteenth century Japanese Edo painters.
1Thomas Mellins is co-author with Robert Stern and David Fishman of New York 1960: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World Wars and the Bicentennial (New York: Monacelli, 1995)