Artist Bio
Abigail Drapkin is a painter from Midcoast Maine. She earned her MFA in Painting + Drawing from the University of Washington in 2019 and her BA in Studio Art and French from Brandeis University in 2012. Abigail is a lifelong learner and art teacher, and is proud to have taught students aged 5 to 85. She currently teaches undergrads at Lake Washington Institute of Technology and the University of Washington, where she enjoys guiding students through the creative process and sharpening their unique point of view through their art.
Abigail has exhibited her work in group shows and solo showcases in Seattle, San Francisco, Massachusetts, Maine, and abroad. She recently exhibited large oil paintings in the group show "What's the Story" at Chatwin Arts in Pioneer Square, Seattle. Her solo exhibition “The Window” opened at Magnuson Park Gallery in Seattle in 2023. In 2019, Abigail exhibited her MFA thesis work including prints and large monochromatic paintings at the Henry Art Gallery. Other group exhibitions include shows at Studio Gallery, Avenue 12 Gallery, and SMASH Gallery in San Francisco. In 2018, Abigail was awarded a two-week residency in Singapore through LaSalle College of the Arts, where she created a series of etchings exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore.
Artist Statement
I began working on “The Table” in the months before the Covid-19 pandemic. As life drew inward, the objects on the table evolved into staples we had left in our cupboards: onion, garlic, rice. The daily newspaper and the views out the window were sources of information and connection.
Those months painting at home continue to influence my work, which centers on still life and the figure in oil paintings large and small. As family and friends came back into my life, they came back into my paintings too. I frequently paint my sister, my mother, my friends and acquaintances. The color palettes drift from somber tones to vibrant hues. I paint objects strewn about, momentos and odd heirlooms mixed among detritus from daily life.
My figures are always inward-looking. I'm interested in the disconnect and distance between our interior lives and our exterior. I often combine inside and outside spaces in a single composition, a view from a darkened room out the window to the sunlight. At times, my imagery fragments into geometric abstraction, then returns back to representation. The shapes and grids represent those moments when the interior complexity in my subjects brushes up against the exterior world.
I draw ideas from Pierre Bonnard and Edvard Munch, both painters of solitary figures, but I flip the male gaze. I focus on the female subject from a female perspective, lending importance to her quiet moments and inward landscapes.
My patient brush captures flyaway hairs and the landscapes out the window, just beyond her steady gaze.
The Table (cropped)
Oil on canvas
30x40in, 2020