Gail Vollrath

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 dr...

MFA University of North Carolina - Greensboro
BFA - East Tennessee State University

Solo Exhibitions

Relative, Plan B, Washington, DC 2010
My Horizon , J.A. Sharp, Lancaster, PA 2010
Gail Vollrath: Recent Paintings, Plan B, Washington, DC 2007
The Day: Paintings and Mixed Media, Gallery Five and 40, Winston-Salem, NC 2006
Gail Vollrath: Recent Works, District West, Leesburg, VA 2003
Masters Thesis Exhibition, The Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC 2000
Past Presents, The Exchange, Greensboro, NC 1999
Inventing Bones, Slocumb Galleries, ETSU, Johnson City, TN 1997

Select Group Exhibitions

is this what loving someone is like?, Tipton Gallery, Johnson City, TN 2013
Art Madness: Invitational Distinguished Faculty and Alumni UNCG, Greenhill Arts Center, Greensboro, NC 2013
Untitled No. 3, Randall Scott Projects, Washington, DC 2012
WPA Works on Paper, (e)merge Art Fair, Washington, DC 2012
Contemporary Women Artists XVI - Longevity, Womens Caucus for the Arts, St. Louis, MO 2012
WPA Flatfile, (e)merge Art Fair, Washington, DC 2011
Unfamiliar Territories, Adam Lister Gallery, Fairfax, VA 2011
Banter: A Dialogue, L2, Washington, DC 2010
Reunion : Invitational Exhibition of 100 Alumni, Slocumb Galleries, Johnson City, TN 2010
Coming Home: ETSU Alumni Exhibition , Reece Museum, Johnson C...