Gary Goldstein’s body of work includes drawings, objects, artist books and paintings. It is informed by Pop Art, Surrealism, Dada and Illuminated Manuscripts. Goldstein’s work draws inspiration from popular sources such as comic books, magazines, advertisements and soft porn from the 1940’s and 1950’s, as well as Kabalistic amulets and the Talmudic page. A well known Israeli art critic, Smadar Shefi, calls Goldstein “a one-man art movement”. Goldstein created his own unique visual language, symbols and style, which uses repetition of both means and images. It is comprised of a personal, private stream of thoughts, of images, of feelings.
Goldstein has exhibited extensively in Israel, the United States and Europe. His work is in major museum collections such as Tel Aviv Museum, Israel Museum, Victoria and Albert museum, Tate Gallery, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Modern Art and N.Y. Public Library.
Goldstein has published 14 artists' books, including two limited editions in collaborations with Yehuda Miklaf, John Cage and Arturo Schwartz.
Since 1984 till today Goldstein has worked on pages of used books which he finds in second hand book stores. He created over a hundred fifty unique altered books. In the last two decades he creates series of intimate, autonomous drawings, which he draws on pages, cut apart from used books. There is often a great intricacy of details. The layers of meaning are belied by the appealing graphic appearance of the work. The drawings are made in series and each series captures, preserves and archives a particular time in Goldstein’s life.
Gary Goldstein was born in Nashville, Tennessee and grew up in Hartford, Connecticut. He studied for his B.A. in Syracuse University, N.Y , followed by an M.F.A in 1977 from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y.. In 1977 Goldstein moved to Israel and was a member of Kibbutz Afikim until 1981. While living in Kibbutz Afikim, he founded an arts program at Beit Yerach Regional High School, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee...
Category
Late 20th Century Pop Art Etching Abstract Paintings