Edie Nadelhaft

"Palm Diptych" Oil on Canvas, 54" x 84", 2011

In words: "My current paintings depict fragments of the surface of the ocean rendered in an extremely limited greyscale palette composed of indigo extra, cadmium red, and white. The imagery comes from my own digital photographs through which I am able to capture a level of detail or moment in time that is not accessible through casual observation. My focus is explicitly on the physical aspects of the water, hence the neutral color. To this end, I am exploring the expressive capacity of a palette that, despite its austerity, yields a surprisingly complex and subtle tonal range. In these works as in my earlier paintings, I use the camera and digital editing to identify and isolate "events" or phrases within the larger world that are at once intimate and universal, timeless and ephemeral. The settings depicted here are of personal significance to me, but all identifying information has been scrubbed from the composition. 

"I Love You", glass and mixed Media, 14" x 4", 2012 

"Flesh Field in 12 Panels", Oil on Canvas, 54 x 72 in, 2010

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Prior to the ocean paintings, my work has dealt mostly* with meaty, corporeal subjects (skin, teeth, lips, cows), described in richly saturated tones and a variety of deliberate marks that are occasionally juxtaposed with areas of dense, flat color. I am interested in complexity and the coexistence of order and unruliness in the natural world and the human condition. The Flesh Field paintings depict the surfaces of my hands magnified to such a degree that their objective meaning is no longer perceived. Showcasing tiny (about one half inch) stretches of my left hand, and seen from such close range that the folds of flesh and striations in the skin make up the entire composition in most cases, the skin is described as an intricate network of lines and bulges that could just as easily be an aerial view of some fictional landscape or a topographical map. The patterns seem infinitely complex, yet I always locate an underlying geometry that anchors the picture and provides at least the appearance of order while highlighting the dual qualities of vitality and vulnerability that characterize physical existence. 

BLTC: hashtag social", glass and mixed Media, 50" x 36" (dimensions vary upon installation), 2014

"Flesh Cube", Oil on Canvas, 25" x 25" x 25", 2011

"N. H. Dusk 11.13, No. 2", oil on canvas, 30" x 30", 2014