Artist Statement
Breaking from the flat surface of traditional painting, Gary Polonsky brings 3D painting to a new level of depth and focus in the food series. After working on traditional stretched canvas for most of his career, Polonsky began an exploration of non-traditional canvases, eventually combining Balsawood, Styrofoam and wire-mesh to create larger-than-life wall-based constructions.
In the leaf series, he monumentalized autumn leaves, bringing our attention to their forms, patterns and textures. Now, in the food series, he celebrates popular American foodstuffs, enlarging them to the point where we must confront them in all of their processed glory.
About Gary Polonsky
What does one say to explain, as if that was possible, the world we live in. How to describe our time and place in terms that reflect our experience. The vast landscape of human endeavors over the last 2,000 years is testament to our successes and failures.
Despite the current political circumstance, I try to stay focused on the goals I've set for myself: To capture a thin slice of our "American" experience, in all of it's quotidian glory. To somehow make a career of creating artwork, satisfying for myself and others. To offer my humble attempt at producing something beautiful, and fun, and lasting. Something, hopefully, that reminds us of the wonder and richness of now.
Born and raised is Los Angeles, I went to Santa Monica City College and then on to Art Center College of Design (then on 3rd street in LA). It seems, even early on, that I was always interested in art, drawing cars, building models, looking at art with more than just a passing interest. A turning point for me was the work of Jackson Pollack and the abstract expressionists. It looked, and was, a very creative, and satisfying experience.
That was the spring board by which I began my serious venture into the art world.