Born in Brooklyn in 1934. Selina Trieff studied at the Art Students League in New York in 1951 with Morris Kantor, at Brooklyn College from 1951 to 1955 with Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko, and in 1955 with Hans Hofmann. The pensive, introspective, character of Trieff's work, its spirituality and its iconic format have all been attributed to the influence of abstract painter Mark Rothko. Of her early experience at Brooklyn College the artist has said: "From Reinhardt and Rothko I learned that art is a philosophical exploration and that art making involves a mysterious process of self-discovery." Selina Trieff has been painting in Provincetown since her student days with Hans Hofmann. Over the centuries, great painters have succeeded through portraiture in reflecting more than a particular face, but rather the face of the human condition. Selina's paintings of human faces evoke a profound understanding of what remains true for humans over time in a manner that is both whimsical and mysterious. Selina's somewhat autobiographical classical gold-leaf and oil portraits of human figures read paradoxically like characters on a modern stage wherein the artist, the painted archetypical figures "neither male nor female... but rather the face of the soul" and the viewer, are engaged in a riveting dialogue. Selina's portraits are allegories for our time, or any other.
Text från Laurel Tracey Gallery