Darcy Gerbarg’s Masterful Painterly Abstractions at the Lockwood Gallery

Art Review by Carl Van Brunt

Darcy Gerbarg loves to make abstract works of art, which will be evident to aficionados of this genre who visit the Lockwood Gallery through June 30th. Gerbarg has developed a signature abstract style that enables her to explore “color in space” in ways that are immediately recognizable as highly accomplished and clearly her own. Beyond these alluring surfaces are unexpected, visually stimulating, and perhaps historically important dimensions that can be accessed by those carrying a mobile phone. A space where sculpture and painting meet as equals is revealed in a new pictorial universe that Gerbarg has participated in creating and joyously explored since the late 1970s. Generally known as Virtual Reality (VR), this innovative space is becoming an immensely important part of the art world we occupy today.

Explore a new way of making and experiencing art.
Darcy Gerbarg’s one-person show, “Space and Time”
Lockwood Gallery: 747 Route 28 in Kingston, New York
Now through June 30th.

Curated by Alan Goolman, the work on view at Lockwood Gallery was created by Gerbarg in spaces revealed to her while wearing a VR headset. A suite of digital brushes and colors are available in the software she utilizes while in this alternate reality. She states,

“I work digitally much the same way I used to work in acrylic on a large canvas: making one brush stroke at a time to build a painting. While my images may appear to have elements reminiscent of traditional still-life or landscape painting abstracted, they have a new color palette, a different feel, and an updated aesthetic that are markers of our time.”

Someone observing her at work making her art would witness a seeming pantomime of action painting. In fact, Gerbarg is experiencing the making of a work of art that bridges the gap between what we consider real and what we don’t. In her virtual world, brush strokes become building blocks of complex compositions that are viewable from every conceivable angle: up, down, over, under, and sideways. During this process, she takes virtual photographs of what she has made, which can then be downloaded and printed.

Visitors to Lockwood are able to experience this new world of form and color directly. Almost every work on view has a QR code posted next to it. Focusing one’s phone camera on this brings up a URL, which, when clicked, brings one into Darcy’s world via the phone’s display screen. Elegant abstract structures depicted in the painting seem to emerge out of the picture plane and occupy the room. As the visitor moves their phone, the room and other nearby gallery visitors remain visible and become enmeshed in the painted/sculpted world of Gerbarg’s devise. More importantly, the gallery goer is no longer a passive observer engaged in an internalized contemplation of the work but instead is actively participating in an embodied creative transformation of the art itself.

While this could be a nightmare in another artist’s work, Gerbarg’s trip is a beautiful journey into a new form of visual experience. She has no philosophical or political ax to grind. A self-described Formalist, she is only interested in sharing the creative process of manipulating in real time in the real world the virtual painting/sculptural forms she has discovered with the new tools that enable her process.

One may speculate that we are at a tipping point in the history of art, where the imaginative journeys of artists become tangible in an entirely new way. This may be true, but for Gerbarg, the time is now, and she is sharing the fruits of her journey for all to enjoy.

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Darcy Gerbarg’s one-person show, “Space and Time,” is on view at the Lockwood Gallery
747 Route 28 in Kingston, New York, now through June 30th.

“With her enthusiastic and fearless embrace of the most sophisticated digital tools in the 1970’s… she is internationally recognized as one of the leading pioneers of the computer art movement…” – Cynthia Goodman, 2024

“…GERBARG is a pioneer of putting digital technology into the service of ambitious pictorial art” – Karen Wilkin, New York, 2024

The gallery is open on Thursdays and Fridays by appointment only and on Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
For further information, call 845-663-2138 or e-mail [email protected].

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Written by Carl Van Brunt | Digital Artist, art writer, and consultant | @cvb25main

THE LOCKWOOD GALLERY is recognized for mounting concept-driven group shows featuring the work of highly creative artists who make art distinguished by originality and personal vision; work which is realized skillfully and motivated by the belief in the power of art to convey truth and beauty.The founder Michael Lockwood and the curator Alan Goolman share a passion for art that matches that of the artists whose work they show. Goolman has a love of color honed in his previous career in the fashion industry and is a meticulous exhibition designer. He also has an eye for talent and is constantly expanding his knowledge of the many artists in our region whose quality of work demands attention. Visitors are engaged by the love of art and artists that The Lockwood Gallery embodies.