Polly Apfelbaum

New York-based Polly Apfelbaum has exhibited extensively throughout North America and Europe. Known for her eye-popping colors and dynamic patterns, Apfelbaum works to blur the lines between painting, sculpture, and installation. Creating what she calls “fallen paintings,” many of her works are shown on the floor using vibrant hand-dyed fabrics. Apfelbaum's work explores the limitations of traditional disciplinary forms, approaches to abstract representation, and references to graphic pop cultural imagery. Increasingly she has worked in installations that combine a new interest in ceramic works, Oaxaca-woven textiles, and custom wallpapers. 

Her recent solo exhibitions were held at The Worchester Art Museum in Massachusetts, Bepart in Belgium, The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech, the lumber room in Portland, the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis and the Paine Gallery at Massachusetts College of Art, Boston. The Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia organized a 2003 mid-career retrospective that traveled to the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati and the Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO and was accompanied by a monograph publication with contributions by Ingrid Schaffner, Tim Griffin and, Irving Sandler along with an interview between the artist and former ICA director Claudia Gould.  The artist's work is in numerous museum collections including MoMA, the Whitney Museum of Art, L.A. County Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art and Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.