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Artist Statement:
The more universal, the more
primal the thought, the form
and the color, the more
powerfully the work will speak
to the harmony within each
human being. It will stand
aloof of current trends and
transcend style, taste and
method. Color, I have
discovered, has a life of its
own and its vibrations speaks
directly to the emotions,
while form and line, based on
number and measure, speak
directly to the mind.
The ‘Golden Mean’ - the
perfect division or Phi - is a
proportional and mathematical
mystery that has intrigued
philosophers and inspired
architects and artists since
ancient times. It has provided
me with a harmonious structure
- a way to begin the process
of experimentation, creation
and play...the compass and
ruler are my tools to divide
the space and break up the
void...in this case the
whiteness of the canvas or
paper. The structure often
yields to an image arising in
the minds eye and the lines
and arcs become obliterated in
the intuitive outpouring of
color and gesture.
Much of my work is about
space and aims to express the
subtle movements from depth to
surface, from the
insubstantial to the concrete,
from emptiness to fullness,
from inner ...
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Artist Exhibitions:
SELECTED ONE-PERSON
EXHIBITIONS
Galerie Raubach, St. Gallen,
Switzerland, Small
Constructions, August 30 -
October 15, 2002
Galerie Raubach, St. Gallen,
Switzerland, New Work on Paper
by Astrid Fitzgerald, Spring
2001
Muroff-Kotler Visual Arts
Gallery, SUNY at UCCC, Stone
Ridge, N.Y, Cosmic Measures,
Fall 2000
Murakami Gallery, New York ...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
Raubach Galerie, St. Gallen,
Switzerland
Ellen Price, New York, NY
Galerie Schoenenberger,
Kirchberg, Switzerland...
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Collections:
SELECTED COMMISSIONS
Union Bank of Switzerland, New
York City, 1990; Hyatt Regency
Hotel, Albuquerque, N.M.,
1990;
I.B.M., Atlanta, Ga. 1988;
Kindercare Corporation,
Montgomery, Ala. 1985; I.B.M.,
Marcel Breuer Building, Boca
Raton, Fla., 1985; Ashly Plaza
Hotel, Tampa, Fla., 1985;
Ridgeway Corporation, Atlanta,
Ga., 1984; Coin ...
Further Information
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Reviews for Astrid Fitzgerald:
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“These quiet icons, produced from generation to generation (Mondrian 50 years ago, Rothko 30 years ago, Fitzgerald today), are signs of an underlying contemplativeness that will not settle for being rushed through a deformed world....[these works] are respectful of the world and its order, respectful of human consciousness, ready to explore them both with a sense of privilege....
The harmoniously related squares, rectangles, arcs, and circles generated by the Golden Section provide Fitzgerald with a stable composition which she then freely alters and activates, creating contrast of light and dark, deep space and surface....” - ROGER LIPSEY, PH.D., AN ART OF OUR OWN: THE SPIRITUAL IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ART.
"Whether in the paintings, drawings, or wall-constructions of Astrid Fitzgerald, the work emanates a sense of logic and clarity that belies the artistic endeavor and challenge standing behind their creation... Fitzgerald's creations are timeless, and true to themselves... her oeuvre enables us to view and appreciate fresh expressions of some ancient thoughts." - ZIBA DE WECK, PH.D.
"These works exude a rare quality of harmony and balance and create an atmosphere of peace..."
"Today, fifteen years after I first saw her work, it still exhibits this effect of balance and harmony. It is this strength we recognize in all of her works, which always aims to tie together the past with the future; order with chaos; stability with instability; concentration with diffusion; the visual arts with other forms of art and ultimately western with eastern culture. This is the essential in Astrid's work. Her goal remains unaltered, it is only the means which changes with every phase of her creative work...
Despite the complex content, the aesthetic of the work remains simple, that is, geometric and abstract. Often it seems as if the design in the shapes of rectangle and circle overlap in a completely spontaneous manner, but in fact, the overlaps are never by chance. How these designs overlay and where they cross is always subject to the ancient laws of the Golden Mean, which has influenced Astrid's work for more than two decades...
When contemplating Astrid's images, we should never forget that the content concerns itself with a universal vision having to do with humanity and its creative force. Through her work, Astrid brings us to the path, but we should wish to take this journey of discovery on our own." - ZIBA DE WECK, PH.D.
"A keyword in Fitzgerald's pictorial voice is the concept "gold." Not only is she indebted to the "Golden Mean" and its resulting harmony, gold as a color hue appears in several works and gives these a festive as well as spiritual character...." - ANNEMARIE STUESSI, ART CRITIC
"For almost 20 years Fitzgerald has taken as a starting point for her work the Golden Mean, a system of geometric proportion mathematically formulated since Pythagorean times. This, plus an abiding interest in Quantum physics and the unified field, are the scientific tethers for her work.
One of the major innovators of the modern art movement, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), has been an inspirational influence for Fitzgerald. Intriguingly, it appears Kandinsky has helped direct Fitzgerald back through the Golden Section to the geometric mysteries revered by the ancients and replete within nature. Kandinsky, coming to prominence a few years before the Russian Revolution of 1917, for a while was part of it, running art schools that extolled geometric design and abstraction in the artistic intellectual exodus that followed.... Kandinsky's book, Concerning The Spiritual in Art, passionately acclaimed abstract art as the way to the "soul" of art and expression. Indeed it could be argued that although Cubism, manifesting around the same time in Paris, irrevocably shattered the smooth-as-glass Victorian art picture plane already torqued by the Impressionists and Fauves, it was Abstractionism out of Russia that had a stronger cultural effect, fertilizing the ascendancy of American abstract art through the '50s, leading to the feet-on-the-ground, painted-from-the-hip, libidinal splattered gems of Jackson Pollock.
Fitzgerald, although having a quieter, less stormy, more rational take on the Golden Mean, comes out of this modernist tradition as well as hearkening back to the ancients by investing the incontrovertible yet mysterious measurements (in her works on paper) with a stippled, layered juxtaposition of pastels reminiscent of Seurat. Points of light flare and darken at the perimeters of the timeless, circular forms, traces hinting of yin and yang, stillness, infinity, potential....
Fitzgerald has taken us on a journey. Her work, though formally modern....is actually rife with natural law....Perhaps, what by some is seen as unrelated cerebral, conceptual abstraction is really at home and rooted in the natural world - the falling autumn seeds curving, whirling in the wind, rustling off our orbed planet. Fitzgerald helps return us to the quiet, the balance, the harmony within all." - ADRIAN FROST, ART CRITIC
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