Marsha Goldberg & Andrew Zimmerman: Taking Shape

Mary Birmingham, Curator
September 28, 2023 - January 7, 2024

Taking Shape is a two-person exhibition highlighting the work of Marsha Goldberg and Andrew Zimmerman. While Goldberg’s paintings on paper and Zimmerman’s painted wood sculptures differ in medium, materials and techniques, they share a sensibility in their exploration of color, shape, and space. Both artists engage in a kind of shape-shifting—repositioning, layering, stacking, or interlocking marks and elements to construct their work. Goldberg builds each composition through an accumulation of small circles rendered in layers of acrylic paint on translucent Yupo paper. She has recently incorporated rectangular shapes into a few of her paintings. For his wall-mounted sculptures, Zimmerman uses wood coated with automotive paint that he cuts and pieces together. In dialogue with these works is a series of recent tabletop sculptures that are more improvisational in nature. Working with a limited visual vocabulary of shapes, both Goldberg and Zimmerman create visually seductive surfaces that invite the eye to linger.

Marsha Goldberg

“This work began as a response to a place, the south of France, and its architecture, in particular the massive Fort St. Jean in Marseille. The imagery is rooted in observation of form, light, and color, and has evolved to become intuitive and self-referential. My process involves the use of tools and techniques formerly employed by graphic artists, such as a circle template and grid. I enjoy the connection with skills that were once practical and are now obsolete, assigning them new meaning. The slow meditative work of completing one circle at a time means hours or days are required to realize a shift in color, the completion of a shape, and the final work becomes a record of that passage of time. A sense of tension and balance results from this carefully considered set of choices.”

About Marsha Goldberg 

Marsha Goldberg received a BFA in painting from Boston University and an MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She is the recipient of three fellowship awards from the Ucross Residency Program, Ucross, WY, a Millay Colony for the Arts Residency, Austerlitz, NY, a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts residency, Sweet Briar, VA, and a NJ State Council on the Arts Fellowship award. She has exhibited at venues including the DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA, the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, new Brunswick, NJ, William Paterson University Art Galleries, Wayne, NJ, the Center for Contemporary Art, Bernardsville, NJ, Hostetter Arts Center Gallery, Basking Ridge, NJ, Adah Rose Gallery, Kensingtion, MD, and A.I.R. Gallery, New York, NY. Her work is in the collections of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, the Bpston Public Library, MA, Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA, Capital One, Washington, DC, Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital, Hackensack, NJ, and numerous private collections. The artist lives and works in Highland Park, NJ and Boston, MA.

Marsha Goldberg, Hold IV, 2023, Acrylic and graphite on translucent Yupo, 40" x 30", Courtesy of the artist

Andrew Zimmerman

“In my work I am interested exploring the intersection between painting and sculpture, art and design, the hand-made and the mass-produced. I am excited by the tension that arises from situating my work in between these categories. I would like my sculptures to create moments of unexpected discovery within a language of reconstructable forms. For much of my career, I have been exploring materials that stand outside traditional art making and address ideas of interchangeability and mass production; most recently I’ve been utilizing automotive paint and wood. When fabricating my work I use hand held tools that create subtle variations in line that amplify the unique hand of the artist. In this way, I am repurposing commercial systems for singular modes of expression.”

About Andrew Zimmerman

Andrew Zimmerman studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and Industrial Design at the California College of the Arts. He is the recipient of a Skowhegan Fellowship Award, a MacDowell Colony Artist Residency, and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Exhibition venues include the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA, The Drawing Center, New York, NY, Schneider Museum of Art, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR, The Korn Gallery, Drew University, Madison, NJ, The RISD Biennial, (curated by Robert Storr), Exit Art, New York, NY, and Galleria Guido Carbone, Torino, Italy. His work is in collections that include the Fidelity Investment Corporation, Boston, MA, Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, NY, Alliance Bernstein LLP, New York, NY, and numerous private collections. The artist lives and works in Maplewood, NJ.

Andrew Zimmerman, Black, Orange, Blue, Red and Green, 2023, Automotive paint on wood, Courtesy of the artist

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