[December 11, 2003] Paul Kolker’s recent works in Boundaries, borders and frontiers define the metamorphosis of the dichromatic black-white image, as we conceptualize or dream it in our mind’s eye, to that of the real thing as we see it in our polychromatic world.
The artist, who is a practicing cardiothoracic surgeon, brings to his studio and into his art his experience and disciplines of science, philosophy and caring as well as the process of the operating room. He distinguishes his work through a process which he calls fracolor, the deconstruction by fractionation and painting with primary colors, including black and white. His canvases are overlaid with paraffin and beeswax which provides an abstracted and textured encasement of the subject.
Kolker carefully avoids mixing his elemental colors. There is no umber, brown, violet or orange in his palette. Therefore, a brown split-rail fence could well be a red fence.
Red Fence, a free standing three-dimensional fracolor in twenty-four parts, 99 x 148 x 12 inches, transcends reality and becomes the viewer’s reflection of the truth of something that represents a fence, but is much more expansive and distinguished from the natural brown fence.
Paul Kolker: Boundaries, borders and frontiers — Opening December 11, 2003.