Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 4

Ira Barkoff
Light Penetrates

2023

About the Item

Born in 1934 in Brooklyn, New York, Ira Barkoff’s paintings feature empty, Zen-like landscapes whose stillness reflects a location’s essence. Barkoff seeks to “portray a sense of vastness” and instill feelings of awe in his viewers, he says. Furthering his exploration of the abstract, Barkoff paints in his studio, rather than en plein air, fabricating landscapes from his visual and emotional memories. The Impressionist-turned-Expressionist painter is inspired by the atmospheric qualities of works by Claude Monet and J. M. W. Turner and cites Gerhard Richter as a more contemporary influence. He recently transitioned from using a paintbrush to using a squeegee and palette knives for his work, as the latter allow for greater spontaneity and manipulation of color. He says of his work: “Looking at a blank canvas can be both exciting and frightening at the same time. Most of the time exciting wins out and I plunge in. That is, I paint the landscape, which for me is what it’s all about. The landscape represents nature and contemplating nature is being in touch with God. You could cast me as a modern-day Luminist-Tonalist-Impressionist. Monet’s Water Lilies have been a big influence, along with the landscape painter Wolf Kahn.” “The landscape is what I see before me or from my mind’s eye. When I paint a mountain or a tree, I’m not trying to capture the mountain or tree literally (that’s what a photograph does). I’m trying to express my inner spirit in the painting – to transcend the physical to reach the spiritual.” “My most successful pictures are not those that are the most accurate in terms of nature, but are the ones where the state of my consciousness allowed me to translate my feelings – my deepest inner feelings – to the canvas. When I get into this altered state, it’s just a fantastic feeling. I think most artists paint in order to get into this altered state. I know I do. Hopefully, what comes out is a perceptual poem.” Education Ira Barkoff received his B.F.A. from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. He also attended the Art Students League, NY where he studied with Robert Brackman and Robert Beverly Hale. Barkoff continues to teach at the Washington Art Association.
  • Creator:
    Ira Barkoff (American)
  • Creation Year:
    2023
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 48 in (121.92 cm)Width: 60 in (152.4 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Greenwich, CT
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU18115602282

More From This Seller

View All
White Cottage
By Maureen Chatfield
Located in Greenwich, CT
American, b. 1948 Artist Statement "My paintings are intuitive responses to the myriad forces that shape my life—emotions that translate into color, visual memories of forms and co...
Category

2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

A New Beginning
Located in Greenwich, CT
Elizabeth Higgins Biography b. 1960 Elizabeth Higgins describes herself as an abstract figurative and landscape painter. Everything around her serves as a potential subject, an inspiration to begin a painting. Fidelity to the landscape, the figure, or the still life is relative, as she isn’t interested in literal depictions; instead, it’s the abstract relationships of these shapes and colors, the abstract pictorial design that drives her work. Higgins’ paintings are rooted in the tradition stemming from Courbet, Derain, Bonnard, Matisse, Morandi, German Expressionism, and the Canadian Group of Seven (also known as the Algonquin School of landscape painters, 1920–1933). She is influenced by the work of her artist-teachers Paul Resika—himself a student of Hans Hofmann—and Robert De Niro, Sr. (1922-1993), as well as the paintings of contemporary artist Peter Doig. Her artistic evolution stretches across this continuum. It is the “in-between”, the hovering between representation and abstraction, that interests her, not the labeling effect of details; instead, she aims directly at the spirit of the painting—of making something come to life. John Goodrich wrote in her catalog essay, “Elizabeth Higgins’ direct brushwork and simplified forms suggest an energy, but crucially, reveal a painter who knows the power of color…” Elizabeth Higgins was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1960. As a Helena Rubenstein...
Category

2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Wavey Season IV
By Adam Umbach
Located in Greenwich, CT
Signed verso Born in Chicago in 1986, Adam Umbach currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Inspired from an early age by the Modern Masters collection at the Art Institute o...
Category

2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

Sunny Fish No. 3
By Adam Umbach
Located in Greenwich, CT
Signed verso Born in Chicago in 1986, Adam Umbach currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Inspired from an early age by the Modern Masters collection at the Art Institute o...
Category

2010s Contemporary Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

Independence
By Adam Umbach
Located in Greenwich, CT
Signed verso American, b. 1986 Adam Umbach was born in Chicago, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. After being inspired from an early age by the modern masters co...
Category

2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

Whalebone
By Adam Umbach
Located in Greenwich, CT
Signed verso Born in Chicago in 1986, Adam Umbach currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Inspired from an early age by the Modern Masters collection at the Art Institute o...
Category

2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

You May Also Like

No extenuating circumstances #1 Hélène Duclos 21st Century Contemporary art blue
By Hélène Duclos
Located in Paris, FR
Oil and acrylic on canvas Signed lower right Unique work 1 / Hélène DUCLOS, 2016 – Artist Statement “Questioning the human condition and the position of being alive – What is it to...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

Look at things from distance #2 Hélène Duclos 21st Century Contemporary art red
By Hélène Duclos
Located in Paris, FR
Oil paint and acrylic paint on canvas Signed lower right Unique work 1 / Hélène DUCLOS, 2016 – Artist Statement “Questioning the human condition and the position of being alive – W...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

Take some fresh air #2 Hélène Duclos 21st Century painting Contemporary art blue
By Hélène Duclos
Located in Paris, FR
Oil paint on canvas Signed lower right
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Do not retrace our steps #1 - Hélène Duclos, 21st Century, Contemporary art blue
By Hélène Duclos
Located in Paris, FR
Oil and acrylic on canvas Signed lower right Unique work 1 / Hélène DUCLOS, 2016 – Artist Statement “Questioning the human condition and the position of being alive – What is it to...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

Selective memory #3- Hélène Duclos, Contemporary figurative painting
By Hélène Duclos
Located in Paris, FR
Oil on canvas Signed Unique work 1 / Hélène DUCLOS, 2016 – Artist Statement “Questioning the human condition and the position of being alive – What is i...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Genealogical spaces #6 - Hélène Duclos, 21st Century, Painting
By Hélène Duclos
Located in Paris, FR
2 oil paintings on canvas composing a diptyc Signed lower right by the artist Unique work 1 / Hélène DUCLOS, 2016 – Artist Statement “Questioning the h...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Recently Viewed

View All