Isaac Pohoryles Gelb

Artist Statement

My art is concerned with the structures and patterns of subjective vision. I am delighted by geometry, especially the shapes which endure in mind long after the eyes have moved on, reappearing spontaneously in daydreams and uninvited recollections. My art solidifies and abstracts these afterimages, saturating them with memory, impulse, and novelty.

While I do work from observation, I am more interested in the effects I can achieve by interweaving observation with imagination. As I work, my ideas spill from one medium to the next, translated and externalized through repetitive action.

In making art I am frequently frustrated by the gap that emerges between the imagined image and its arrival as a finished object. This gap reappears whenever our expectations don’t align with reality. Our fears and doubts are amplified when we perceive attributes in ourselves falling short of an imagined standard. We expend enormous amounts of time, energy, and resources to close gaps as they open and diagnose just where they might open next. We clothe ourselves to match our identity groups. We suppress ideas and urges that disturb us or threaten to challenge others. We implicate our bodies, behaviors, and beliefs in presenting a consistent “identity” to the world. Far too often, we sacrifice genuine desires for acceptance and survival.

Making art has become a kind of defense mechanism against egregious personal compromise, a reminder of value of the imagination in resisting rigidity and sameness. Creating art reorients me within life’s gaps, exposing them as flexible and illusory. In making art, subjects we don’t know or understand transform into pockets of possibility, while subjects we think we know well are reintroduced with mystery and complexity.

Please browse my work— you can find everything in the “Portfolio” section— and get in touch if you have any thoughts!

Thank you so very much for being here!

Sincerely,

Isaac