In her previous work exhibited at The Phatory Feinberg presented delicate, almost paradisical, painted images based on natural and scientific imagery. The work in the present exhibit also alludes to the natural world but in a more indirect manner, turning away from the suggestion of a natural paradise towards an encounter with a disquieting landscape, a quiet and indirect suggestion of a world indelibly marked by human intervention. In their cracked surfaces Feinberg finds both hints of the lines of a human palm in which the future can be read and also the a suggestion of the disruptive tensions that are the marks of the human activity on the world that will in part determine that future. The works remain as exquisite as the earlier paintings but are marked by layerings of activities that provide them with a greater formal and perhaps conceptual complexity.

The works have as their underlying surface, a series of print patterns made from commercial stamps, but this surface is then worked and reworked until the process of stamping gets overwhelmed by the artist’s interventions. The work begins with a decorative patterning but the paintings’ essential tension emerges as layers of paint, luminescent powders and mediums, inks, and other materials are subsequently applied directly to the canvas. As surface fissures result from these interventions the works become suffused with a gentle hint of impending crisis. More meditative rather than didactic, Feinberg’s latest works both hint at a world in danger and celebrate the beauty of that world even when in such a crisis state.

Camille Feinberg was born and currently lives in Los Angeles but also resided for a number of years in New York City. She studied painting at the California Institute for the Arts and Rutgers University Aside from her shows at The Phatory, she has exhibited both in Los Angeles and New York. While in New York in addition to painting she was active in the avant-garde theater world, performing with Richard Foreman, Stuart Sherman, and other directors/playwrights.