"Tops" Painting

My life is not by hard core plan and neither is my work. Nothing is fixed in our world and intent in my work, is to keep it open. I don’t deny the awkwardness that may come about from putting colors together; representations of pop culture and current news; never deliberately narrative and often visually nonobjective. Situations are often in mind and clip art or actual objects are sourced for use as occasional representational images that may be present in otherwise abstracted meanderings. I don't typically plan my paintings or drawings. The process of drawing or using paint takes unpredictable form on surface. Each mark leads to the next.

The Polaroid Drawings
I started drawing on Polaroids in 1999 while in grad school. Even though my work is mostly drawing and painting on canvas and paper surfaces, I have used photos in many ways in my work - from reference to deconstructed collage elements. The act of drawing on Polaroids serves as a lab. Sometimes the drawings on photos will transfer to my other works on other surfaces in ways that are obvious or implied. The photos I take are typically of my work in various stages of process or images of ephemera lying around my world. The mark making is intuitive and natural, with drawing being key in all my work - a conduit from situation to surface.

Gail Vollrath is an exhibiting studio painter and mixed media artist who lives and works in Washington, D.C. Originally from Chicago, she received her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Vollrath is the recipient of a fellowship to Vermont Studio Center in 2000 and 2013 and has been awarded a purchase grant from the DC Arts and Humanities Council.