HARRIET WISEMAN
Harriet Wiseman Art Review in readingeagle.com !
http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=216987
Harriet Wiseman is a Philadelphia wife, mother of two, and grandmother who began painting in 1993 at the suggestion of a therapist. As a way to access her memories and emotions, drawing and painting opened the floodgates to her expression; she has been working prolifically ever since.
Wiseman paints on antique book covers, which she collects, as well as wood, and less often canvas or paper. Her subjects emerge out of the abstract patterning of the book covers, her role is to flesh out what she sees. Wiseman also began to see images in her paint palettes.
Most of the paintings on wood were originally Wiseman's palettes, some as large as table tops, that she has worked into refined, colorful portraits.
Wisman's painting is sometimes raw and direct, her colors brooding, and shadowed. Sometimes more intentional design elements and bold, complicated color relationships are prominent, relfecting her former career as a jewelry designer. Wiseman maintains an automatic method of working where she places her focus on visual pattern, whether the design of a book cover or the arrangement of blotches of color on her paint palette. Then Wiseman's work begins to reveal itself to her. Concentration on materials is echoed in Wiseman's subject matter, where she draws from personal history as well as a larger history of women. She focuses on material culture such as clothing and jewelry to note the time and place of her subjects, and hint at the importance of these personal stylistic choices in women's lives as modes of expression.
Wiseman's subjects stare out at the viewer with deep eyes telling of complex internal lives beneath the surface. This suggestion of deeply personal worlds in the minds of her subjects is a reflection of Wiseman's need to communicate her own private world, and in this sense her paintings are all self-portraits. But Wiseman also reaches beyond herself, connecting her story to a universal one.
A respect and reverence for the past is evident in her work, it appeals to a broad audience. Harriet Wiseman, a well educated, well traveled woman, does not fit any stereotype about self-taught artists. Wiseman's artwork reminds us that creative impulse is a human need that can no more easily be catagorized or defined than contained; she is a true artist, telling a story she is compelled to tell.
A Horse #640 acrylic on antique leather book cover
21 x 18 inches
*Inquire for Price
#618 acrylic on antique leather book cover
18.5 x 22 inches
*inquire for price
Girl in Pink #500 acrylic on antique leather book cover
19 x 16 inches
NFS
Red-Headed Woman #572 acrylic on paper
21 x 23 inches
SOLD
Lady All Dressed Up #593 acrylic on antique leather book cover
*inquire for price
Woman in Thought #603 acrylic on antique leather book cover
SOLD
Daydreaming #619 acrylic on antique leather book cover
33.5 x 28 inches
SOLD
Redhead with Red Locket #560 acrylic on antique leather book cover
SOLD
Black Tie Affair #592 acrylic on wood
26 x 32 inches
*inquire for price
The Recital #553 acrylic on wood
26 x 28 inches
*inquire for price
Mother and Children #594 acrylic on antique leather book cover
17.5 x 14.5 inches
*inquire for price
Group of Women acrylic on wood
28 x 32 inches
NFS, similar available
Woman and Two Children #524 acrylic on antique leather book cover
21 x 23 inches
*inquire for price
Woman in a Hat #574 acrylic on antique leather book cover
20 x 24 inches
*inquire for price
Woman and a Bouquet #548 acrylic on antique leather book cover
24 x 21 inches
*inquire for price
Mother and Children #524 acrylic on antique leather book cover
19 x 22 inches
SOLD
Her #549 acrylic on canvas
33 x 33 inches
*inquire for price
Woman in Profile #580 acrylic on antique leather book cover
22 x 26 inches
*inquire for price
Woman and Child #557 acrylic on cardboard
SOLD
Mother with Child #595 acrylic on antique leather book cover
19 x 22 inches
*inquire for price
Fashionable Ladies #624 oil on masonite
30 x 24 inches
SOLD
