Vivian Polak
Born in New York City, Vivian Polak grew up on Long Island and the coast of Belgium—two places where the combination of water and flat land make for extraordinary light. After many years of working with photography, she now explores how to extend her vision by adding drawing and painting (primarily with inks and watercolors) to her photographs.
She studied at the Art Students League, the International Center of Photography, the New York Studio School and in workshops and studio classes at the Art Barge in Napeague.
Her works are part of numerous private collections and have been shown at The Cheryl Hazan Gallery in NYC; at Clic Gallery, folioeast, and Ashawagh Hall in East Hampton, and at Sylvester & Co at Home in Amagansett.
“With photography, ink and paint, I explore the physical locations and inner places I’ve lived in and visited, each as an external and internal landscape. I seek to find the feeling of each space in time and to understand how a space remembers the people who have been there, even long after they have moved through.
I build each work with layers, each one representing a different experience of time and place. Working with moving shadows and shifting patterns, I look to capture moments as we move towards them and as they move past us.
I often start with a photograph that sets a reality on one plane, at one point in time. I then add my own notions of what might have come before and what might come after—in each case seeking to weaken the bind with the “real” reference of the photograph, moving closer to inner the compositions that we all experience.” — VP
Every Choice is Important, 2016, archival photographic prints, watercolor, 30 x 22 in
Leaves In Time, 2019, archival photographic prints, watercolor, graphite and ink, triptych 18 x 48 in
Night Sky, 2020, archival photographic prints, monotypes and twine, 24 x 18 in
Night Window, 2019, watercolor, crayons, graphite, 30 x 22 in
Night Window 2, 2019, monotype, 30 x 20 in
Shadows of Leaves and Time, 2019, monotypes and graphite, triptych 12 x 27 in
This Is At Night, 2019, monotypes, graphite and twine, 30 x 20 in
Traveling on My Private Road I, archival photo print, ink, watercolor, gesso, 30 x 22 in