A painter for more than three decades, Massachusetts-based artist Ellen Grobman will make her Southern California debut on Saturday, March 21, 2015 with exhibiton “Bother Me: New Paintings,” at Michael Roud Studio in the NoHo Arts District (11223 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, 91601). An opening reception for the artist will be held from 4-7PM on March 21, and the show runs through March 28.

“I’m always interested in creating another world. That was my first impetus in making art, and it still is,” says Grobman. “I use pattern as structure. I articulate it, mess it up, and then allow it to bring me back from the edge of chaos, which is actually the place that interests me most.”

This drive to bring something into being, disrupt it, and then flirt with its destruction—the boundary of something existing and then not—echoes through the paintings included in “Bother Me.” Grobman’s abstract pieces are vividly colored and delicately textured. They communicate, through elegant gestures and veiled messages, a visceral emotional undercurrent and a desire to connect.

She attended Cornell University School of Art, earned her B.A. at Goddard College, and did graduate work at Hunter College. Her work has been shown extensively in Massachusetts, New York, and other places on the eastern seaboard. Based out of Amherst, Massachusetts for more than 25 years, she has had a daily studio practice for a decade longer than that, and without it, she says, “nothing else is in balance, nothing else completely works.”

Following the 3/21 opening, hours for “Bother Me” March 22-28 are:
M-W-F: 4-7PM
T-R: 5-7PM

For appointments: ellengrobman@gmail.com / 413.237.2666 text/cel.

Images pictured at top are L: Bother Me – 2014, oil on wood, 48” x 40” R: Ethereal – 2014, oil on wood, 36” x 28