The Elkon Gallery is pleased to present its first solo exhibition of paintings by artist Vicky Colombet.
“A strange weave of space and time: the unique appearance or semblance of distance, no
matter how close it may be. While at rest on a summer’s noon, to trace a range of mountain on
the horizon, or a branch that throws its shadows on the observer, until the moment or the hour
become part of their appearance- this is what it means to breathe the aura of those mountains,
that branch.”– Walter Benjamin
With a career spanning over three decades, Colombet’s abstract paintings, works on paper,
prints, fine art photography, and architectural glass projects exist in conversation with various
art historical movements—from traditional Chinese Painting to Abstract Expressionism. Eleven
paintings ranging in size between 18 x 24 and 72 x72 inches are presented in the gallery.
Colombet experiments with the weights of pigments, their type of granulation, chemical
response, their specific vibrations and steps for grinding. For Colombet, pigments are the
particles and forces in the universe, as she creates parallels of energy between the particles and
brush strokes and physical movement. The use of pure pigment also gives a unique vibration
and emotional resonance. “My paintings are non-objective,” Colombet says, “but they come
from a place where abstraction and nature meet. Not only inspired by nature, in the end result,
but also in every step of the process.”
In the Spring of 2020, “Vicky Colombet: In Dialogue with Claude Monet” will open at the Musée
Marmottan Monet in Paris. Conceived as an homage to Claude Monet, Colombet’s “Water and
Light” series evoke two of the great themes explored by the leading Impressionist.
Colombet was born in Paris, in 1953 and currently lives and works in New York. She has lived
and maintained studios in Paris, the South of France, Barcelona and the Cévennes. She has a
studio at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and a studio barn in the Hudson Valley, where
she works on larger scale paintings.
Colombet’s work is included in numerous public and private collections, including the Albright-
Knox Art Gallery, the Musee Marmottan Monet, the Museum of Fine Arts, St Petersburg. She is a
recipient of the Esther and Adolph Gottlieb Foundation Grant (2001) and the Pollock-Krasner
Foundation Grant (2014). A member of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in Manhattan since
2004, she became an American citizen in 2013.