Artists for the Barnes: Alan Soffer

Alan Soffer has been making art since 1973 in a variety of modalities.  Originally, he was known for ceramic sculpture, particularly, religious ritual objects and later for work about ancient healing and the deconstruction and fragmentation of images. His work as teacher and curator continues to augment his primary passion for abstract expressionist painting which began in 1985.

His studies in sculpture and painting include Arrowment School; State U of New York, Oswego; Parsons School of Design; Bennington College; Corcoran Museum School of Art with Paul Soldner, Peters Valley Art Center; Penna. Academy of Fine Arts, 1988, 1996, 1999; Ringling School of Design and much more.  .             

Soffer's exhibitions have traveled to Argentina, Cuba, Kurdistan, and throughout the US.  Important exhibitions have been at Widener University, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, National Museum of American Jewish History, Hoyt Institute, Atlantic City Art Center, Sande Webster Gallery, York College, Penn State College, Penna. Academy of Fine Arts, the Print Center, Parallels Gallery, State Museum of Penna., Rosenfeld Gallery, and Robert Roman Gallery to name a few.

The current emphasis on encaustics is a perfect marriage of his two loves- sculpture and painting.  His use of encaustics began in 1998 and continues to be an integral feature of his oeuvre. Reduction and distillation both buries and exposes bits of images and sentiments infused in the multilayered paintings.  The ancient technique of hot pigmented wax, which he has helped to revitalize, remains a unique vocabulary for expressing space through its inherent translucency.

Victoria Donohue - Philadelphia Inquirer [2003, Widener University] wrote:
"Soffer is serious artist with a truly poetic gift for making his paintings coalesce into visions of quite remarkable beauty.  He is a colorist and very versatile in this; he uses color exuberantly and paints seemingly with abandon, yet his results are nonetheless strongly rhythmic.  Such paintings project an engaging physicality, even though they rely on swift effects to declare their presence as the shapes move back and forth between realistic portrayals of the human figure and abstraction- with the accent on abstraction.

To see his work go to :   http://www.myartspace.com/AlanSoffer/

Alan Soffer
2 Blackthorn Rd
Wallingford, PA  19086
610-565-6086
Allthreads@comcast.net

"G-Spot II" - encaustic on board 16"H x 21"W - $1000

Email:  barnesfriends@comcast.net
Write: 7615 St. Martin’s Lane
            Philadelphia, PA  19118

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