At once ethereal and graphic, joyful and wistful, Glen Goldberg’s paintings are akin to dreams, providing an aperture for the viewer to discover, meander and absorb. Goldberg creates lambent works built in layers with delicate brushstrokes and flecks of color. Goldberg's artworks consistently feature intricately stippled surfaces layered over gentle washes, adding depth and complexity to each composition. Goldberg’s mark making not only structures the space, but also acts as a record of the artist’s concentrated attention, time, and devotion. “The dots afford me a way to measure: to show what was put into the paintings physically. It is fulfilling for me… More importantly, you can see every touch. The dots also give an electricity, an energy; I can use them to create explosions, or create light.”
Golderg’s daedal designs seem to float off the surfaces and recall outsider art, Tantric art, pointillism, and Aboriginal art, Goldberg cites many, often eclectic, affiliations that fuel his practice and his excitement around artmaking, including Shaker furniture, celadon bowls, Japanese screens, and African textiles. Goldberg’s paintings have also referenced anti-authoritarian attitudes of the 1970s that brought political and aesthetic movements such as feminist art and pattern painting to the forefront.
Goldberg utilizes a broad palette for the creation of his unique compositions that encompass intricate lines, assorted marks and details. “I work out of an interest in structure, related hierarchies and moods that exist in nature. My works are invented without viewing either nature or images of nature, but I feel that they are driven by what exists in nature. I can’t prove this, but that is the way that I feel. I am interested in art as a re-ordering of ‘what goes on.’” Jennifer Samet of Hyperallergic described Goldberg’s work as “about this meeting point of the ordinary and the other, regularity and refinement… Repetitive mark-making becomes a focused, meditative practice, and a basic indexical sign is transformed into a richly charged visual field.”
Glenn Goldberg was born in the Bronx in 1953 and attended the New York Studio School and Queens College during his undergraduate education. He later continued his graduate studies at Queens College to receive his MFA. In 1996 he was named the Heilman Artist and since has received grants from The Guggenheim Foundation, The Edward Albee Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and The Joan Mitchell Foundation. Goldberg’s work has been shown extensively throughout the US and internationally, and is held in numerous collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Academy of Arts and Letters, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, among others. Goldberg has taught at various institutions including The Cooper Union, NY Studio School, Brandeis University, Queens College, Parsons School of Design, and Lodestar School of Art in Ireland. He has also been a panelist and visiting artist for MFA painting programs at Yale, Columbia, Boston University, American University, Hunter College, and others. In 2023, Goldberg was commissioned to create a public arts project at the E. 149th Street subway station in the Bronx by the New York MTA Arts and Design Commission. Goldberg lives and works in New York City.