Artist's Statement
“I work with thick broad shapes, strong vivid colors and sensuous surfaces to create dense symbol-filled pictures. My themes and images are concerned with mankind, the environment and our interrelationships with all living creatures.” — Florence Putterman
My paintings and works on paper have long explored how to develop a modern visual equivalent to the deeply felt interrelationship of earth and cosmos sacred to primitive cultures. I work with thick broad shapes, strong vivid colors and sensuous surfaces to create dense symbol-filled pictures. They do not always depict a certain event, but rather suggest ideas and themes. They don’t speak directly, but presuppose in the mind knowledge of an event or fact.
In the process of working these symbols together, sometimes narratives emerge, but are not planned at the outset. Themes of good and evil, comedy and tragedy, philosophical and global concerns on the fate of the earth and the species that inhabit it, are all evident.
I examine the world through my painting. My work springs from actual experience visually recalled and made permanent. My themes and images are concerned with man, his environment and his interrelationships with all living creatures.
When I am painting, I am only aware of the canvas and what it tells me to do. I am not as concerned with actual representation of images as much as I am concerned with arousing the senses of the viewer. In all the works, there is an urgent plea for the earth interspersed with a reminiscent look back.
In the process of working these symbols together, sometimes narratives emerge, but are not planned at the outset. Themes of good and evil, comedy and tragedy, philosophical and global concerns on the fate of the earth and the species that inhabit it, are all evident.
I examine the world through my painting. My work springs from actual experience visually recalled and made permanent. My themes and images are concerned with man, his environment and his interrelationships with all living creatures.
When I am painting, I am only aware of the canvas and what it tells me to do. I am not as concerned with actual representation of images as much as I am concerned with arousing the senses of the viewer. In all the works, there is an urgent plea for the earth interspersed with a reminiscent look back.
Florence Putterman
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"Celebration" Oil on Canvas 58 x 64
Biography Overview
Florence Putterman is an internationally known artist with a great imagination who has constantly reinvented her work throughout her career. She has received numerous accolades including the Distinguished Alumni Award from Pennsylvania State University and a National Endowment Grant in 1979. Her paintings and prints have been displayed in many museum and corporate collections including: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum, New York; Chicago Art Institute, Chicago; and Jacksonville Museum, Polk Museum, and Gulf Coast Museum in Florida. Putterman is listed in Who’s Who in American Art, Who’s Who in American Women, and Who’s Who in America.