I am not old! Not me! I am as youthful as ever, as curious as ever, as passionate in experiencing the drama and vicissitudes of life as ever. My eyesight might be getting weaker, but I “see” better than ever.
Grace Graupe-Pillard's paintings, composite photographs, and other artworks have developed to include a wide range of personal and politically charged images, fragmentation of the picture plane, the juxtaposition of symbols inside of human silhouettes and keyholes, and cutout paintings.
Grace Graupe-Pillard's work has generated lively discussions on topics such as art history, body image, changing ideals of beauty, feminism, aging, age discrimination, the role of the artist in society, and even mortality.
Sketching my mother as she lay in hospice, I drew the heavy lids framing the beautiful, once warily alert gray-green irises, the “yes” and “no” eyes, vividly etched into my memory, that my twin sister and I could bring to an outpouring of tears or a ray of pride . . .
"I distinctly remember feeling envy mixed with frustration and fierce anger when I realized that boys had advantages available to them in the universe outside of 875 W.180th Street, Apartment 1B that were not accessible to me.”
I loved photographing the schoolchildren in the Memorial Day parade, when recognition of a parent in the crowd-filled sidewalks initiated a loss of composure and a squall of wildly waving hands.
I have never seen a tree, whether at Rockefeller Center or The White House, that can compare to the ones that a New York City "five and dime" store on 181st Street, just off Broadway erected for Christmas, covered with glittering baubles, and flakes of snow, with the height and mass of a mountain crowned by a brilliant golden star. A tree that tapped into a child’s hunger for inspiration and enchantment.
In my portraits, the personal and the political are interlaced: they involve risk through a literal baring of self, expose the vulnerabilities of aging, and explore with humor and pathos, how I as an older woman exist and navigate as unnoticeable in an urban environment.
After his massive stroke, my father sat in his wheelchair, frantically scribbling in a notebook. Utterly frustrated, he scratched out on crumpled, stained paper: I USED TO BE O.K. . . . I AM A RETIRED ARCHITECT. Witnessing this encounter, I felt ineffable heartbreak
Sandy Gellis is one of the pioneer women artists to utilize water, earth, air, and light as her palette. She investigates the indispensable primary elements of life by transforming the mysterious “unseen” to the germinating “seen.”