Press

Pamela Talese's small, quietly observed works, painted from life, honor the plein-air tradition that many assume to be dead by turning to industrial subjects and pushing the style slightly toward documentary photography. Fittingly, they record a dying phase of New York history: the piers, buildings, cranes and docking equipment of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, along with tugboats, fireboats and ships in and out of dry dock.

The subjects have all seen better days, but the images are not nostalgic. And despite the paintings' documentary aspect they clearly could not be photographs; they record places of honest work in part by exemplifying it. They are carried by an unforced accuracy abetted by a subtle color sense and straightforward surfaces that are neither finicky nor juiced up.

ROBERTA SMITH, New York Times

Recent Exhibitions

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Washington DC (Group Show 2007)

GEORGE BILLIS GALLERY

New York City (Group Show 2007)

ATLANTIC GALLERY

New York City (Solo 2003, 2005, 2007)

THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION

New York City (Group Shows 2004 – 2007)

DFN GALLERY

New York City (Group Shows 2004, 2007)