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Gift of Art: The Paintings of Elena Borstein 1985-2015

When
Where

York College Gallery, Academic Core Building

Contact Name

Dr. Margaret Rose Vendryes

Contact Phone

718-262-3797

Attendees
Faculty, students, staff & community.

The opening event will be on Thursday, February 7 in the Fine Arts Gallery. The artist talk will begin at 5 pm before the February 7th reception.

Professor Emerita Borstein is donating new framed pieces to York College, where she taught for many years. In the 19 paintings in this exhibit, Elena Borstein's interest in architecture has been a constant theme yet the work has changed with the various places she has visited or reconstructed in her imagination.

In the 19 paintings in this exhibit, Elena Borstein's interest in architecture has been a constant theme yet the work has changed with the various places she has visited or reconstructed in her imagination. Artist talk will begin at 5 pm on February 7.

 During her student days at Skidmore College, Borstein spent many hours photographing and painting the abandoned Victorian mansions in Saratoga Springs. When she received her MFA degree at the University of Pennsylvania, it was the architect Louis Kahn who most inspired her with his poetic musings about the meaning of architectural spaces and their effects on the human psyche.

 "Borstein began teaching at York College where the academic schedule proved advantageous.The summers off perfectly suited her artistic urge to seek atmospheric illumination," said art critic Janet Koplos. She traveled wherever she could find the light.

 Instead of looking at great architecture of the past, which inspired so many, Borstein focused on the vernacular architecture and in particular that which lines the shores, hillsides and islands of the Mediterranean. She used both pastels in these works and acrylic paints for which she developed an airbrush technique, laying down hundred of thin layers to create luminosity in the painted surfaces.

Borstein's work is included in numerous major collections including, The Museum of Modern Art, NY; Hayden Museum, MIT,Cambridge, MA; Neuberger Museum, Purchase,NY; Everson Museum, Syracuse,NY; Newark Museum, Newark, NJ.