Listening Fields: Paintings By Sharon Falk

Sharon Falk’s paintings are inspired by the fields and wetlands where she lives. Walking through them is a journey of expanded time surrounded by the images and sounds of the seasons evolving. I paint wild things: birds, and botanical forms, as though I can see time and energy moving through them, lifting upward and vibrating outward. I seek to observe the patterns and rhythms that are created in nature, and to portray the aura of a subject with a glow from an unknown source. I think of these wild things as mirrors of us, spinning their world, in the language of cornfields and birds; they sing the world into being around us.

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Sharon Falk is a New York based wartist hose expressive paintings evoke the gesture of a moment in time, and the power of that moment to expand, timeless in memory. Her images are those of the natural world: wild creatures and landforms painted with a sense of motion that radiates the space around them. Light glowing from within and around the forms erases boundaries, creating an energy and aura that transcend time.

From an early age, she had a desire to experience the world from many different regions and cultures; and has traveled in Egypt, Greece, Peru, Italy, Mexico, and the caves of the south of France filling sketchbooks with images inspired by the art of those civilizations. She is intrigued by the effects of time layering over the ancient frescoes, with artifacts made and covered over and found again; and her work seeks to express the energy and power existing in all things.

Growing up in Arizona, and living in New Orleans and Los Angeles for several years before moving to New York, she was surrounded by a rich sense of light and color and the space of wide western lands. Falk also worked as a courtroom sketch artist for CBS News covering historic court proceedings for broadcast; and having to travel on short notice to be at a trial, and drawing every day reinforced her instinct to capture a figure quickly while it was in motion. With her interest in history and its fragments of the past, she seeks to portray the potential in each of us: the divine side of us running parallel with fleeting time. We are each on a journey of discovery, ultimately alone, that expands in our perceptions and shared knowledge.

Falk has also taught painting and drawing at Pace University, and Bergen Community College; and has been the recipient of artist residencies in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Woodstock, New York; and Gatlinburg Tennessee; and received the Paula Rhodes award from the School of Visual Arts. Her work is in numerous collections nationwide.