Emily Berger

About

Emily Berger is an American abstract painter based in Brooklyn, New York. Her paintings are minimal and gestural, revealing in process and celebrating the hand of the artist. Berger is a member of American Abstract Artists. Education After graduating from Brown University, Berger earned her MFA in Painting from Columbia University, and attended the Skowhegan School in Maine. She has lectured extensively and participated in numerous artist residencies, including the Norte Maar Adirondacks outpost. Technique Berger works with oil paint on wood panels. She layers paint in gestural, horizontal swaths from left to right, stacking the horizontal bands from top to bottom of the surface. An interplay of complementary colors creates a sense of push pull, endowing her compositions with nuanced luminosity. Scraping and scumbling the layers of paint, Berger gives her paintings a textured, painterly, material presence. She describes her method as being in the tradition of Abstract Expressionism—as if an event is taking place in the arena of the painting. Her approach, however, is quite controlled. Despite its structural reliance on the grid, the interplay between planning and the emergence of accidents lends the work a feeling of energy and mystery. Inspiration Berger is inspired by the conversation that emerges as she works between the known and unknown. She approaches her paintings like a form of writing, applying rhythmic, deliberate marks from left to right. The gestural bands are layered in a grid, but they also sag and drop, evidence of the imperfect hand, and a nod to the force of gravity. Improvisation is key to what Berger achieves. Like a musician choosing to play in a certain key or at a certain rhythm, she selects the colours and structure of the work, but with each new painted and scraped layer, new omissions and revelations emerge. Her intuitive response to these changes guides the evolution of the work. What remains is a picture of variations and rhythms revealed.