Sam Liberman has been painting colorful art work for over 35 years. He now works primarily with pastels, while also fashioning a number of oils each year and drawing on a regular basis.

 

His work is primarily landscapes, including seascapes, skies, mountains, flowers, swamps, architecture and almost any outdoor setting you can imagine. In the past several years he has also been painting figures on a regular basis.

 

His art education began in a class with Sheldon Helfman, and he has studied pastels with many excellent teachers, including Doug Dawson, Albert Handell, Colleen Howe. .

 

 His paintings portray recognizable realistic subject matter even in those that lean slightly toward the abstract. The most unusual characteristic of his work is his use of color. He often, if not always, departs from the realistic format in arranging color to express his feelings about the subject matter rather than to reproduce the actual color that he sees. He also uses color to develop the structure of the picture. The contrast in the painting is often more warm/cool than it is light/dark.

 

 

He states, “I am more interested in the interaction of the colors than duplication of anything I see. While I don’t try to personify colors in a symbolic way, I sometimes think of them as similar to skilled dancers or athletes, and once I have gotten into the painting I try to just let them perform, relying mostly on my instincts, experience or other unconscious sources.”

 

Another characterisic of his landscapes is that they are likely to invite you in.

 

"I remember years ago when my friend Phil Dennis came to one of my first shows, he commented that I seem to create places for people to relax and enjoy the peace. Painting was definitely an escape from the work of a trial lawyer, which is what I was at the time. I think that the reason I paint is to open my eyes and see. I hope that the paintings work in the same way for the viewers. We are so used to verbal communication, that at times we need to wake up to visual communication , which is a whole differnet experience. For me it is like seeing the world anew each time I start and complete a painting."

 

“I seldom copy any of the artists I admire most, such as Payne, Van Gogh, Degas, Rose, M. Wachtel to mention just a few. My work contains a little of expressionism, color field, post-impressionism and other identifiable movements, but I enjoy many others art movements, such as art nouveau and fauvism. I would have to admit the most of the painting I love was done between 1825 and 1950”

 

Sam’s  work has been exhibited in over 50 competitive national and international art exhibitions. In June, 2009 he had a one person exhibition at The Butler Institute of American Arts, probably the top national venue for pastel artists in this country.

 

What people seem to like about his work is its freshness and simplicity; although sometimes you will find some things in each painting which you may not notice until after you have looked at it for a while. His work is intended to encourage your imagination as well as his own. "My aim is to stop time, to get away from the the ordinary and let our vision take over for a while."

 

contact at samhalib@hotmail.com  or 916-213-5282