My paintings have always been built upon murky and indecisive foundations. Clear, sharply focused compositions have obscured private, secret, often ugly layers of paint underneath. In my most recent work, however, I have tried to harness this process, with varying results. All of these paintings have hidden images below the surface. Erotic paintings lurk beneath thinly painted still lifes. Messy abstractions exist below the surfaces of the figure paintings and the portraits of my family. I am aware that admitting this may entice or frustrate some viewers and cause others to mistrust me or to think I am charmingly repressed. But isn’t life just like that? Nothing is what it seems to be and we all strive to balance - to hide or to expose - our layers of passion, desire, anger and love. As for the final images, water has been an apt vehicle for exploring this border between the surface and the soul of things. Whether it is the lack of water, the pouring, dripping or splashing of water, the transparency, opacity or color of it, or the surface of the water itself - it is all a metaphor for the many layers of reality. For me, the greatest danger and beauty exists in the allure of slipping below the surface.

Bio
Abbe Lubell was born in Queens, NY in 1962. She graduated from Oberlin College and then received an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in NY. She has worked as a designer for Tiffany & Co. for many years and has exhibited her paintings sporadically. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Paul Gordon and two daughters, Sophia and Halle

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