When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, a selection of new paintings by Catherine Drabkin at Kraushaar Galleries in New York, begins on October 1st and continues through October 31st.  This is her seventh exhibition with the gallery.

Drabkin’s current body of work was inspired by Walt Whitman’s 1865 elegiac poem. In a statement, she explains her inspiration:

               [P]laces and objects are signifiers for the passage of time, for the presence or absence of one beloved; they are used to create visual compositions as equivalents for a longing that can't be quenched.

               Three mismatched cups on a table or a too tall sunflower in a little flowerbed, such transient experiences can be an excuse to transform. Can they be exploited to dislodge a buried memory with a color harmony? Can they be used to connect seen reality with feeling, or are they tools for using the exterior world to studio.

               This search is for the elusive moments of recognition when a place            or shape of light brings up from below consciousness a feeling or interior truth, creating connections from shapes and forms to turn the ordinary into a glimpse into the extraordinary.

               And I like the colors: to look at them, to touch them, to transcribe them.

Catherine Drabkin’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, and the artist is the recipient of numerous residency fellowships and grants, including most recently an opportunity grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts to support Finding Home: an American Neighborhood, an artist's book inspired by her neighborhood in downtown Wilmington. Examples of her work can be found in the Association des Petites Cités de Caractère de Bretagne, France; the Getty Trust, Santa Monica, CA; The Rauner Special Collections Library of Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; Washington University, St. Louis, MO; Amtrak, Wilmington, DE; and numerous private collections. 

As a founding faculty member of the Delaware College of Art and Design, Drabkin taught in several departments. She has also taught at the University of Nebraska/Omaha, Southern Connecticut State University, Dartmouth College and Point Park University, Pittsburgh, where she is currently teaching figure drawing.