SOMETHING OPENS OUR WINGS
by
Pat Silbert
September 29 - October 26, 2024
Pat Silbert works with the natural world, often in her garden and along the Potomac River, including butterflys, trees and birds. As a way of bringing a spiritual depth reflecting the interconnectedness of all life into her paintings she combines a love of nature with ancient Buddhist symbology.
Silbert has been a member of Waverly Street Gallery for 20 years. She has shown previously in Kornblatt Gallery, Zenith Gallery and Fendrick Gallery. She studied at GW University and Corcoran Art School. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont Collage. Silbert worked as a graphic designer for many years including as Assistant Art Director at The Office of Economic Opportunity. She lives in the D.C. area and in New Hampshire in the Summer.
Frames of Reference
Almost-Realist Paintings by June Linowitz, Pat Silbert, and William Tinto
OCT 20, 2024
NATURE IS NOT IN CRISIS in Pat Silbert's meditative acrylic-on-paper paintings, many of which depict the Potomac River and its avian inhabitants. "Something Opens Our Wings" is the title of the Washington-area artist's Waverly Street Gallery show, and winged creatures feature in many of the pictures. With colors that muted and mottled, aquatic or earthy, Silbert portrays ephemeral moments that usually center on water, trees, flowers, or birds.
The central compositions are straightforward, but complicated by pictorial insets, internal borders, and traces of gold leaf. The picture's frames are not physical but painted, and are positioned both around and within the main image. While natural phenomena are often the sources of the secondary images -- a feather, a pair of bobbing geese -- Silbert sometimes inserts gold-flecked images of Buddhist icons. These are inspired by the thousands of identical images of the Buddha in rooms in Tibetan-style monasteries in Ladakh, India.
Silbert's interest in spirituality gives resonance to such simple scenes as a downward view of a path through the woods. The painting could depict a pleasant walk, or a course toward full immersion in nature. Similarly, the artist's lone trees usually stand next to bodies of water, casting reflections that are lengthier than their actual heights. The shadow is more imposing than the object that casts it, or perhaps even more real. Silbert's paintings both exalt nature and seek something beyond it.
