The Red Thread of Three Female Artists

FLEISCHMANNS — As the 1053 Gallery co-curator/writer Lindsay Comstock suggests in the summary of this exhibition, the color red symbolically unifies these three artists, Lisbeth Firman, Patrice Lorenz, and Angela Voulgarelis in an ‘activating force, a symbol of yang, and a fiery energy of transformation.’. Firmin and Lorenz are, without contention, very powerful forces in this upstate New York art scene having commanded the respect of many as artists of the highest regard. These two painters have made Delaware County their home for several decades and flourished in finding their way with great conviction and presentation. Voulgarelis, was in Italy and unable to attend the opening reception. 

This exhibition opened on a busy weekend with village holiday celebrations happening throug out the region, but this didn’t prevent the 1053 Gallery from attracting a great number of folks that had to see these new works that had been created over the past year for this show. All three have a gift for throttling the abstract lines through impressionist and expressionist styles with both elegant tones and a great range of emotion. 

Voulgarelis’ painting ‘Red Hands Red Heart’ appears to be the inspiration for the title of the show. Upon close examination this female figure, emerging from dark brown tones in a red dress, it holds the viewer as the subject’s expression engages in deep thought. The red dress in contrast with the background has a skillful mix of color value and application. Another of Voulgarelis’ works, ‘Tender Headed’, was equally fascinating. The central figure, a young girl in a blue dress surrounded by adults of varied definition, lost in her own head, absent from everyone around her. This, too, features aspects of well-placed red accents.

Having met with Lorenz for an interview at Art Up where she is co-owner, we chatted about her past that led to the present exhibition at the 1053 Gallery. She described herself as clearly focused on art since the first grade. With the encouragement of Lorenz’s high school guidance counselor in Rockland County, she attended Brockport College studying print making. She then transferred to SUNY Albany for graduate school, finding her way towards the love of painting. Lorenz spoke about her awakening related to color, “My eyes kind of opened up to painting. I remember being at a party and they started to play this music by Bettie Carter, a jazz singer. All of a sudden I was like, I GET IT! I’m seeing color.” This was when Lorenz switched from printmaking to the painting department.  Upon completing her education in art, Lorenz had enough credits to be a teacher in the NYC public school system. When she showed up for her first day, the principal gave her a box of books to help develop her art program for the children she was to teach. In the box was a ‘How to Do It’ art book that she had cherished throughout her childhood. She explains, “I put my hand on the book and in my mind I could see each page flipping through.” She described the nineteen-eighties as being a rough time for female artists in the city. She had a series of traumatic experiences of male artists vandalizing her artwork at exhibitions. This led Lorenz to become withdrawn from creating art for a decade until she moved out of the city to upstate. Lorenz shares her delight in her move to Margaretville twenty or more years ago, “It was wonderful. It was a safe space to create art. I just love where I’m at with it now.” Patrice fell in with the founders of the Longyear Gallery in 2005, “That also was wonderful.” On Lorenz’s painting style choices, “I feel like the different things that I’m interested in require different styles. The content determines the style and material. So, that’s why I think it keeps changing.” Out of graduate school, Lorenz was heavily involved in figure painting, though for a while upstate, she did mostly landscapes. The evolution of her work has married both landscapes and figures, “There was just this experience of being in an empty landscape, and I started to imagine, what if this was happening instead. What if there was this person doing something, like projecting into it. I started to look at my landscape as if something to happen on. What would be happening there?” Lorenz gave an excellent example at the opening reception, as she described her thinking behind her ‘Encounter’ painting. This piece is a beautiful impressionist garden of yellows and greens with red apples and a young girl peering into the bushy forest.  Lorenz says she felt as if the girl was pondering, as if in a Garden of Eden moment. Her works, as she says, are a glimpse into her intuitive moods which are sometimes dark and at times very playful and abstract, such as ‘Mother Hubbard Takes a Rest’. 

As for Firmin, she wasn’t a big fan of art school at first. She, too, was recognized as a budding artist from an early age. After a brief attempt at college, she chose to draw portraits. In the interview with Lorenz, she said art schools didn’t have classes for drawing, as the focus was strictly painting and printmaking. This could be one of the reasons why Firmin was discouraged at the time. Firmin moved to Provincetown and joined her husband doing portraits in Puerto Rico, as well as dipping into the NYC scene. While in Provincetown, Firmin studied under Philip Malicoat who was a friend of Edwin Dickenson, two artists she admired. He inspired Firmin to see as a painter would see, as she described that experience. In the two winters studying with Malicoat she tells, “He taught me how to mix colors, what a palette was, and what paints to buy.” Firmin became a single mother and made the brave move to NYC after she met the gallerist Marie Pelliconi while showing her walk on a sidewalk on Bond St. Pelliconi invited her to do an exhibition. Firmin learned about the art world the hard way, “I was so naïve, I figured if it was so easy to get an art show in NY, I’m just going there and going to make a big success of it.” Firmin says after that she didn’t show for another ten years. She had grown tired of doing portraits on the street and found herself doing graphic design for fifteen years. Firmin continued drawing and journaling to keep up with the progression of her skills. 

Around 1992 Firman launched her new life as an artist painting urban street and subway scenes. With great relief she says, “This is when my art career took off. I had an open studio show, and I sold every one.” Firmin’s daughter went off to college, and she was let go of her position at a design firm that was downsizing. Firmin giggles as she recalls her boss giving her the news, she acted sad but inside she was delighted this was happening just as she felt confident in her art, once again. Firmin has an exceptional gift for painting with such an original style of her own. The expressionist style transcends into realism in a way that is so unique. The people featured in each painting speak to the viewer in a way that tells a vivid story, yet each viewer of her work can maybe empathize or identify with each character. For someone who struggled with the concept of painting at the start of her career, she has a brilliant taste for color combinations. Very much like Lorenz, nothing seems to limit her imagination and exploration. Firmin has worked with gouaches and acrylics but has expressed an interest in returning to oil painting. 

Interviewing both exceptional artists for this exhibition was such a fantastic experience and it’s well worth visiting the 1053 Gallery in Fleishmanns to soak in the magnificence of their years of evolving works of art. Lisbeth Firmin also has a studio on the second floor of The Commons Building in Margaretville, Patrice Lorenz can often be found at Art Up on weekends, and Angela Voulgarelis has a studio in Kingston. Hopefully we can catch up with Voulgarelis for an interview soon.