2015 Catalogue Archive

Establishing a conceptual framework for each of her series, Marcia Hafif explores the basic elements of painting in her works by focusing on color, paint, or the support. The series Fresco Painting from 2008 is based on sky and earth tones found in the frescoes of early Italian Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca. Hafif divides the surface vertically, using a tint or shade of indigo for one portion that contrasts the earth tones she paints on the other side of the canvas. In Fresco Painting: 3 LB08 (Indigo/Green Earth), the light blue wash of the left side is outweighed by the grassy green painted in short vertical brushstrokes, visible due to Hafif’s choice of a glaze medium. The two opposing fields of color present the viewer with a horizon landscape tilted on its side, tying her abstract painting to artists’ century-old investigation of the earth and sky. Hafif’s body of work consists of photography, sculpture, film, and installations, and is represented in many public and private collections.