Elegantly Dressed Wednesday: April Gornik
Posted by Kathleen Benton on Oct 21, 2009
In a world where audacity and infamy are given accolades, one can hardly be surprised when mere brilliance and virtuosity garner relative obscurity. That’s why it’s understandable if the name April Gornik doesn’t ring a bell. Gornick is not a well-known artist. Although she enjoys a very successful career, I don’t think Gornik has the renown she deserves for her exquisite landscape paintings.
It’s not like she hasn’t tried. Gornik began exhibiting her paintings in New York galleries in the early 1980s and has broadened her audience with international shows as well. Her work is included in over forty public collections in the United States and abroad, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Smithsonian Museum of Art. It’s not like she has no role model; Gornik is married since the 1970s to Eric Fischl, an acclaimed artist himself, who made his name in the 80s for painting depictions of dysfunctional suburbia.
No, I think Gornik’s obscurity has to do with the landscape as her subject matter. A landscape doesn’t need much explanation. We don’t need interviews with the artist in order to evaluate our response to a landscape. We don’t need art critics to tell us what we are seeing and why the work is or isn’t an important artistic statement. There’s no question of the artist’s intentions, no challenge to cultural taboos, no shock value, no controversy, no sex, no violence, no merde hitting the canvas.
We can simply appreciate a thoroughly traditional painting genre, handled in this case with great skill by an artist with definitely a modern sensibility. We can enjoy the light and drama of nature and its interpretation into paint which Gornik does so well. For this is work about seeing and painting, not in-your-face headline grabbing.
I suggest you seek out April Gornik’s paintings for yourself, take a friend with you, and then pass along the good news. The news that great painting is alive and well, relevant, and waiting to be discovered through April Gornik’s work, once we have finished reading the headlines about all the scamps. Know that a reproduction of Gornik’s work, as with most art, is hardly a substitute for the viewing real thing (Light Before Heat is 11 feet long!). While a great deal of contemporary art can be read about and then argued about as a concept, this work needs to be experienced.
Perhaps April Gornik doesn’t want or need to make noise or headlines to feel successful. She may be proud of the fact that her work stands on its own without being confrontational and controversial. It may be enough for her to be masterful and elegant.
Kathleen Benton
Lightning and Water, 1981, Oil on canvas, 50 x 102 inches
Light Before Heat, 1983, Oil on canvas, 66 x 132 inches
Light and Trees, 1996, Oil on linen, 82 x 55 inches
Storm in the Desert, 2002, Oil on linen, 70 x 115 inches
Field and Storm, 2004, Oil on linen, 74 x 95 inches
Sun, Storm, Cloud, 2004, Oil on linen, 72 x 96 inches
Mirror Lake, China, 2004, Oil on Linen, 78 x 104 inches
Dune Sky, 2007, Oil on linen, 70 x 81 inches
Red Desert, 2008, Oil on linen, 68 x 72 inches
The Rains, 2009, Oil on linen, 76 x 79 inches
April Gornik (American, b. 1953), Photograph, 2005
Photograph of April Gornik and Eric Fischl, 2008
Eric Fischl photograph of April Gornik in studio
April Gornik, Moving Sky, 2005, Oil on linen, 24 x 32 inches
For more information and images of April Gornick’s paintings visit her website: April Gornik
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