b. 1953
April Gornik is an American artist whose large paintings, drawings, and pastel works deal exclusively with nature. Her works reveal mysterious atmospheric landscapes of land, deserts, seas, mountain ranges, and skies. “I dream in landscape images, so it seems to be an essential part of my subconscious vocabulary for emotional expression.”
Gornik was raised in Cleveland, Ohio. She attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Canada, receiving her B.F.A. in 1976. She lives in Sag Harbor, New York since 2004 with her husband, the acclaimed figurative artist Eric Fischl.
Gornik’s paintings and drawings are taken from her own nature photographs. However, her finished works are more than literal copies of nature studies. They are landscapes imagined. One example is her “Triple Smoke” 1986 a charcoal and pastel landscape on paper. This work is a dramatic interpretation of nature rather than a strict representation of a particular place. It describes a mood and not just a specific terrain. Its chiaroscuro technique shows clouds of smoke rising high into the sky. The cause of the fire is unknown and is portrayed as a mysterious event.
Her paintings capture natural phenomena rendered as luminous landscapes. She highlights nature’s transitory and dreamlike moments. Her work presents a dynamic and sometimes disturbing representation of the natural world.
Group exhibitions include “Seeing Nature: Landscape Masterworks” first shown at Portland Museum of Art and later traveled to The Philips Collection, Washington D.C.; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; New Orleans Museum of Art; and Seattle Art Museum.
She has exhibited in solo exhibitions nationally and internationally including the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Neuberger Museum of Art, and the Huntington Museum of Art.
Her work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Ohio’s Allen Memorial Art Museum; Art Gallery of Ontario; Brooklyn Museum of Art; Cincinnati Museum; Cleveland Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Museum of San Francisco; Fort Worth Museum; The Jewish Museum; New York’s Museum of Modern Art; National Museum of Women in the Arts; Whitney Museum of American Art; National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; and others.
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