Barbara Trachtenberg

Trachtenberg is a Boston-based daughter of Eastern European immigrants. She has taught literature and language, interviewed immigrant women’s lives, published short stories. Her paintings and collages have been in solo and juried exhibitions in Greater Boston, Havana, France, and New York. A MacDowell Fellow, she has attended residencies in France and Italy and travels yearly to work in different environments.

She began painting 25 years ago. As an intuitive, action painter.. Energy and battling emotions, gesture and spontaneity push rich color and texture from her first mark. Imagery and characters emerge in abstract.

She explains—I’m a gestural painter—action, emotion, movement push me through tensions I carry into the studio. I paint and move to chamber music, jazz, opera, blues, Jimi Hendrix, Shostakovich and Mozart. These drive and balance me as I paint in response. Emotion without words arise as rhythm releases tension. I might rework one painting over many months while completing another in two sittings. Holding back, doubting myself, I seem to enjoy that offer of ambiguity and Not Planning my work. When I’m unresolved about whether a painting is finished, I might bring it into my living space for months until I settle into accepting it or putting it aside for years. Working through emotion with color, gesture and material grounds me. I need to release the control I take in daily life. Hiking releases me to return to work. From the start, I knew that Not Thinking was a gift I would welcome, the gestural act releasing tension. My painting is my catharsis.