Sherry Wolf Returns to Painting with a Modernist Flair
American realist painter Sherry Wolf has had her works on view at The White House and was once touted by ABC New York Nightly News as a “visionary genius.” Her biggest feat to date, however, was returning to her artistic career after a four-year hiatus, spent grieving the untimely loss of her 22-year-old daughter, Chelsea. When Chelsea passed away in 2009 after an adverse reaction to a date rape drug that was slipped in her drink at a Christmas party, Wolf lost her daughter, and her will to paint. With encouragement and guidance from one of her long-time patrons and fans, Hollywood producer Jerry Weintraub, Wolf started painting again and debuted her newest series last March in Palm Springs.
Wolf’s bright, expressive paintings will be exhibited by Richard J. Demato Fine Arts Gallery at ArtHamptons this month. The paintings capture Wolf’s inspirations and experiences, including mid-century modernism and her years as an art world darling during the ’70s, when she frequented Studio 54 and split her time between New York and California. Each work features a model dressed to evoke notable mod trends, standing before familiar allusions to modern art and characteristic motifs from that era.
In Mondrian Girl, 2014,a blonde woman poses in front of Piet Mondrian’s grid of black lines and red, yellow, and blue rectangles. Her dress, a replica of the painting, dissolves into the background uniting the muse and the work. Wolf also draws from Italian fashion designer, Emilio Pucci, with Pucci Girl, 2014, picturing a woman enveloped by Pucci’s trademark swirls of psychedelic colors. The mid-century modernist inclination toward stripes and polka dots is reflected in her paintings Stripe Girl, 2014 and Polka Dot Girl, 2014. Wolf’s careful study of assundry styles allows her to navigate art movements and portray contemporary perceptions with attuned detail.Throughout these paintings, she focuses on formal presence, acute subject matter, and vivid color, rendering startlingly real compositions.
Visit Richard J. Demato Fine Arts’ at ArtHamptons 2014, July 10th-13th, 2014.
