In Madeline Silber’s work she depicts the complex subtleties of connection and separation in our contemporary relationships. The drawings and paintings merge elements of illusionistic realism with components of abstraction, raising questions about the dreamlike realm these images inhabit. These small intimate works exist somewhere in between biomorphic abstraction, surrealism and narrative representation, maintaining their existence on the edge of contemporary discourse.

Drawings have become the primary focus of Madeline Silber’s art practice which previously focused on painting. She started this series Thoughts during the pandemic as a way to more quickly and unconsciously create imagery. She is still enjoying the fluidity and directness of drawing with pen to develop forms, spaces and movement in these pieces. These could be viewed as magnifications of the way things work, and/or conceptual still lives of body parts in motion generating their own life force energy. She has moved beyond the Thoughts series, continuing to make individual ink drawings.

Drawings are 6” x 6” unframed, 15” x 15” framed.

Below is Madeline Silber’s Drawing Thoughts Catalog on issuu. This project was made possible with public funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and administered by The Earlville Opera House. A grant from SUNY Oneonta Faculty Research & Creative Activity Grant Program also provided funding for this project. Drawing Thoughts, a series of small drawings took place at the Huntington Memorial Library, Oneonta, NY, February 15–March 22, 2024.

Special thanks to Mary Murray, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Munson Museum, for contributing her insightful essay Pas De Deux, a dance of line and space, and to Tina Winstead, Director, Huntington Memorial Library, for graciously supporting the SCR grant and hosting the exhibit.

Drawing Thoughts Catalog Essay by Mary Murray, Curator, Munson Museum of Art

Article in all.otsego about Silber’s work