Rebecca Purdum

Rebecca Purdum writes: I often think about a conversation I had with three friends who are all painters. We tossed around the idea that artists might just paint one painting throughout their lives, the same painting over and over, no matter how different the individual works appear. Only the artist knows if this is true. My experience in the studio has taught me that despite their similarities, each painting is unique, like a minute in an hour, an hour in a day, a day in a year. They add up to a lifetime of surrendering to the painting every day in the studio. One friend then said he thought we’re all painting the same painting. I like this idea, in fact it has helped me through the ups and downs of facing a blank canvas. I like thinking that our artistic efforts connect and propel us toward the one timeless, changeless thing we call Art.

Rebecca Purdum has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1985. Her distinguished exhibition history includes Seven Painters in the Their Prime at the Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation, NY, curated by Robert Storr (2017);  In Tribute to Jack Tilton: A Selection from 35 Years , Tilton Gallery, NY (2018); and In Residence: Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth, Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH (2014).  Purdum was represented in the Whitney Biennial (1991) and the exhibition Ten + Ten: Contemporary Soviet and American Painters at The Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, TX, which travelled to eight museums including SF MoMA, CA; Albright-Knox Gallery, NY; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and museums throughout the former Soviet Union (1989).  Purdum is included in major private and public collections including M.I.T. List Visual Arts Center, MA; Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, NY; the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, NY., and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX. Rebecca Purdum has received critical attention throughout her career with reviews in The New York Times, Art in America, Artforum, The New Yorker, The Brooklyn Rail, New England Review, ARTnews, among others.

She has painted in many places over the years but the studio where she works now in Ripton, Vermont is the best, even when she has to shovel a path through the snow to get there.

Rebecca would like to express her deep thanks to Pamela Salisbury, and everyone at the gallery, for giving her this opportunity to exhibit work in Hudson.