Herbert Pföstl: Between Field and Firmament

Opening Reception / Art Talk
* Saturday, June 10, 3:00 pm talk, 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm reception
Exhibition Dates:
* June 10 – August 6

Curated by Elia Haworth

Herbert Pföstl’s recent paintings are studies of the liminal—within both place and time. These “landscapes” exist between field and firmament, at the edges of thresholds, in the visible traces of vanishing forms. Pföstl takes inspiration from the geologic, and his paintings often appear lithic, as if composed of stone. The surfaces are created through an accumulation of many coats of pigment, which the artist then carefully wears away through abrasion or erasure and builds up again in cycles.

These works function as reliquaries in which Pföstl fathoms lost or departing landscapes. In its Old English iteration, “fathom” meant to embrace or encircle with one’s arms. But these paintings depict what cannot be traditionally seen or held: silent hymns of layered time, relics of light, and tectonic shifts.