Ethan Greenbaum’s work at Galerie Pact.
PARAMUS, N.J. – Bergen Community College art professor Ethan Greenbaum recently completed “Cold Frame,” his first international solo exhibit at Paris’ Galerie Pact. The exhibition featured mixed media works based on his walks traversing the alleys, streets and avenues of New York City.
“A lot of inspiration comes from the city where I find various moments of contradiction or strangeness that occur because of such dense spaces,” Greenbaum said.
Greenbaum, of Brooklyn, New York, took cues from Aaron Siskind, the late American artist known for his abstract architectural photography. Similar to Siskind’s work, Greenbaum’s hybrid process also draws references from buildings and surfaces. However, Greenbaum’s myriad snapshots of man-made objects – mainly taken with his smartphone – are a starting point for his mixed media works. Using industrial manufacturing equipment to transform his photos into 3D carvings made of plywood, acrylic sheets and countertop surfaces, Greenbaum creatively displayed varying points of view in his exhibition, such as the reflection of a building in a car window.
“Something I’ve always been interested in is photographing a subject matter in a way that makes it a little unfamiliar as well as a little more surreal, surprising and unusual in the way that it’s presented,” he said. “That’s the common connection.”
Prior to his solo exhibit, Greenbaum’s work was also on view in a group show at Stems Gallery in Brussels. He will return there in November for another solo exhibit at Super Dakota Gallery. Additionally, in March, Greenbaum’s work will be featured in a solo booth with New York’s Lyles & King Gallery at The Armory Show – a premier New York City art fair founded in 1994.
Greenbaum joined Bergen’s faculty in 2006 after earning a master of fine arts in painting/printmaking from the Yale University School of Art. His work has been featured nationally in exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Connecticut as well as internationally in Paris, Brussels and Italy. Among many awards and residencies, his most recent accomplishments include the Dieu Donne Workspace Program for emerging artists in New York and a nine-month studio residency program offered through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
Greenbaum has twice served on panels at the College Art Association Conference and the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He is currently serving as a thesis advisor at the School of Visual Arts in New York and has participated in various visiting artist roles at colleges and universities located mainly throughout the East Coast.
Based in Paramus, Bergen Community College (www.bergen.edu), a public two-year coeducational college, enrolls 15,000 students at locations in Paramus, the Philip Ciarco Jr. Learning Center in Hackensack and Bergen Community College at the Meadowlands in Lyndhurst. The College offers associate degree, certificate and continuing education programs in a variety of fields. More students graduate from Bergen than any other community college in the state.
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