SIGNALS Collection, 2022

page updated: 06 January 2023

ABOUT THE LAKE of GOODBYES

THE LAKE of GOODBYES is part of a series of paintings begun with FUGUE in which the artist depicts the internal, emotional landscape accompanied by a cPTS episode--sometimes referred to as a "fugue state," in which the sufferer may experience loss of personal autobiographical memory, occasionally unexepected travel, and/or amnesia--with bold, black vertical strokes which have been impastoed to varying depths and degrees. Layers of gold and silver enamel add bold striations of reflection, which the artist refers to as "incongruencies" in recall. A solitary form of turquoise adorns the lower right of the painting: Pfeff's signature "one and the many" reference, seen in numerous works from this time period.

ABOUT OF ALL POSSIBILITIES

OF ALL POSSIBILITIES is part of a series of paintings begun with FUGUE and YOU, LEAVING ON A SATURDAY IN DECEMBER.

Here, a restrained color palette allows the viewer's eye to visit each mark in a meditative fashion. Two bold markings of ultramarine blue adorn the piece. As they stand, fixed in eternal, reaching motion toward the other, these marks may ask the question: of all possibilities, are we, two, alike... enough?

ABOUT FUGUE

Mark making has a long history within the Iñupiat graphic art traditions. With FUGUE, the artist depicts the internal, emotional landscape accompanied by a cPTS episode--sometimes referred to as a "fugue state," in which the sufferer may experience loss of personal autobiographical memory, occasionally unexepected travel, and/or amnesia--with bold, black vertical strokes which have been impastoed to varying depths and degrees. Layers of gold and silver enamel add bold striations of reflection, which the artist refers to as "incongruencies" in recall. A solitary form of turquoise adorns the lower right of the painting: Pfeff's signature "one and the many" reference, seen in numerous works from this time period.

ABOUT YOU, LEAVING on a SATURDAY in DECEMBER

YOU, LEAVING on a SATURDAY in DECEMBER, done in miniature, is the first in a series of four, small-scale paintings. As a non-representational abstraction of an emotional event, this painting-- executed in a series of impastoed black strokes, broken and interrupted by the grain of the support material--may evoke a sense of tension, claustrophobia, fear, and loss. As the lines, themselves, vary in strength and composition, so too do the emotions, memory, motivations, and words they suggest. Some are fading away--shattered. Others, growing darker and thicker as if driven from the support in an urgency to act against what is happening, in an attempt to freeze the moment, to rewind the clock.