Louise Fishman

Born 1939 in Philadelphia, PA
Lives and Works in New York, NY

Louise Fishman’s paintings are characterized by layers of thick and thin paint, rough brushwork, and scraping—techniques that gesture back to the historically male-dominated Abstract Expressionist movement—whereas their overall compositions suggest woven patterns recalling traditionally feminine crafts.

The two paintings by Fishman included in the 2014 Biennial were inspired by the artist’s recent residency at the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice. The melding of order and chaos that she encountered while touring the city’s famous blue-green canals and labyrinthine alleyways aligned with the direction her painting has taken since the early 1990s. Artworks that Fishman made during this period reveal her efforts to resolve the two apparently opposing tendencies she has worked through as an abstract painter since the mid-1960s—the hard-edge objectivity of the grid and the gestural subjectivity of expressionism.

On View
Fourth Floor 

Louise Fishman’s work is on view in the Museum’s fourth floor galleries.