Barbara Pagh

https://www.heragallery.org/barbara-pagh

The two series in this exhibition are a continuation of series from several years ago.
When I had the opportunity to show with Kathie Florsheim I decided to re-visit the theme of the Rhode Island coast.

For Matunuck Intervals I began in September by walking on the South Kingstown town beach and Moonstone Beach on an almost daily basis, using my phone to photograph details of patterns in the sand, sand fences, rocks, piles of slipper shells, burlap bags that form a buffer for a house. The beach changes all the time with the wind and the tide. Sand fences get torn up as the winter progresses and create linear patterns of wood and wire. The tide leaves patterns in the sand and the wind blows darker sand to accentuate the patterns. Sometimes the tide was so high there wasn’t room to walk the whole beach. In September there was also a lot of plastic trash on the beach, which I would collect and photograph before throwing it away. The trash lessened as the beach became less populated except for twisted lobster pots. I continued to walk the beach until March, when parking was blocked due Covid 19 restrictions.
The photographs were altered on the computer and became digital negatives that were then exposed onto light sensitive lithographic plates and printed on a variety of thin Asian papers. I collage the images together in spaced intervals on a larger piece of abaca handmade paper.

The Horizons series are collages of dyed handmade papers. Working mostly from memory, sometimes with a photographic reference, I arrange horizontal elements of sky, water and sand in a minimal composition. There are days when the sky and sea merge, days when color transitions stand out in the water, or the sky has a dramatic contrast.
Working in the studio is a solitary experience, a seemingly perfect activity for quarantine. However I found it difficult to concentrate and to finish this series. I had to alter some original plans for some of the imagery. And starting in March I began walking every day in the woods. So maybe my next work will turn from the sea to the woods.
-Barbara Pagh
July 2020

Barbara Pagh is a printmaker and papermaker who is a Professor Emerita of Art at the University of Rhode Island. Pagh is a founding member of the Printmakers’ Network of Southern New England. She has been a member of Hera Gallery in Wakefield, RI since 1985 and serves on the Board of Directors. She studied art at Mount Holyoke College and at New York University. She bought her first press in 1975 and not long after started making her own paper after reading an article in a magazine. She took additional printmaking classes at Bob Blackburn’s Printshop and papermaking workshops at Carriage House Handmade Paper. She has exhibited at the Adams Gallery in Taegu, South Korea and was one of two artists from RI to participate in a national portfolio exchange, East/West.