Sherrie Wolf
In this exhibition, Looking Back, Northwest artist Sherrie Wolf further refines her practice of juxtaposing still life paintings with a variety of references, including grand historic landscape paintings, a series of Vermeer figure paintings, and a dramatic riff on a Courbet. Wolf plays with illusion by combining contemporary still lifes with elements of paintings from art history, a technique that connects her work to the traditions of reinterpretation and artistic borrowing. A seminal piece in the show is a re-examination of a Courbet self-portrait, in which Wolf inserts herself as the artist. Having recently celebrated her 60th birthday, she has been reflecting on her career thus far, and considering her relationship to the many historical artists she references and admires. Wolf continues to use her contemporary experience to present historical allegories in new and dramatic ways.
Sherrie Wolf graduated from the Museum Art School, now the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR, in 1974 and received an MA from the Chelsea College of Art in London, England in 1975. She began exhibiting her work in the mid 1970s while teaching art at PNCA. Her work is included in such collections as The Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Center for Graphic Arts, Portland Art Museum; Hallie Ford Museum, Salem, OR; the Tacoma Art Museum, Washington; City of Seattle; and Washington State Art Collection. In 2010, her work was included in The Secret Language of Animals at the Tacoma Art Museum, WA, and in Album: Artist Portraits of Artists, the 30th anniversary exhibition of The Art Gym at Marylhurst University, OR. Most recently, Wolf’s work was presented in a solo exhibition at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, which received enthusiastic reviews and was accompanied by a full color catalog.