Cheryl Agulnick Hochberg

For the past decade I have been developing certain themes in my work in two different formats. The first is a group of oil paintings on panel which are realist and observational in nature. The second is a group of three dimensional objects that I make collaboratively with other artists. These three-dimensional pieces depend on a viewer’s physical interaction; in order to understand the intention of each piece, the viewer needs to touch or move it in some way.

Although the two formats have their obvious differences, all of my work shares a similar intent. I have always perceived the physical world as rife with both meaning and mystery. When I present my subject matter it is for the purpose of coaxing out these qualities. I do not so much think that I am painting “my ideas” as serving as a microphone or mouthpiece for my subjects so they can better speak for themselves. I acknowledge that this is a somewhat mystical or metaphysical approach, but it is how I perceive my world and how I wish to present it. When presented with any one of my pieces, I hope that a viewer considers my subject matter as being more curious and provocative than its mundane function would suggest.

In my paintings I have various approaches that I use to signal to the viewer that I am after more than surface representation. I may choose to include words, collage, or metal leaf, and I also often depict things in repetition including often profuse patterns, or subjects that invite the viewer to count. My work also has a strong geometric quality and an attention to detail that can border on the obsessive. Regardless of the individual approach of each painting, I intend all my paintings to be beautiful, all of my subject matter to have a strong presence, and all of the placement within a painting to seem intentional and right.

My three dimensional work also presents the physical world and tries to communicate similar qualities. In most cases the work has something that is seen first, and then something that is seen later. This “first” and “later” correlates to the “mundane function” and “deeper meaning” that I present in my paintings. Most of the pieces still include some amount of representational painting, although they also incorporate a wide range of materials and surfaces.

Collaborative Work:
Both because these works are collaborative and because they invite the viewer to touch, they are somewhat less traditional. I would like, therefore, to address something of their history and process as well as how they are received by a viewer:

The pieces that I am including in this show were made collaboratively with one of two collaborators. Some were made with my husband, Ken Hochberg, who is also trained as a painter and now works as a web developer. Others were made with Andrew Brehm, who recently graduated from Kutztown University where he studied furniture design.

Ken and I originally made together a group of ten pieces in a box format. Initially these boxes were quite straightforward cubes which the viewer explores by opening and peering insider. In later pieces they are only box-like in the sense that they incorporate hinges. For the most part my husband’s role in the pieces was as designer and fabricator, while I did more of the surface decoration.

Last year when we were finishing “No You Can’t/Yes You Can” (the last box in the series) I hired a junior furniture design student from my school named Andrew Brehm to solve some construction issues for us. I found him not only to possess outstanding building skills; he also was able to understand what we were after expressively in the piece and to suggest solutions in keeping with the intent of work. This year I proposed to Andy that he and I also collaborate on some pieces. I had initially intended to continue making boxes with Andy, but after much discussion the result has been a new group of work specific to him and me. While we found that we overlapped conceptually it is at different points than I did with Ken, and he brought a different set of building skills to the arrangement that I was eager to use. Specifically, he brings a wonderful facility with mechanics, motors, lights and sound as well as traditional wood skills. Still, the resulting pieces are in keeping with my collaborative work. They are constructions which invite viewer interaction, contain parts of representational painting, and continue to address the physical world and its meaning.

In both collaborating situations my method has been generally the same. Through a great deal of discussion I and my collaborator decide what we want to make. Although I orchestrate the arrangement, the role of my collaborator is not that of a hired builder. The pieces are co-created and co-owned and very much the product of two people. Each piece is handed back and forth, usually as many as half a dozen times, until it achieves its necessary resolution. Perhaps because of the two sets of hands and two minds involved, the pieces tend -- far more than my paintings -- to look very different at completion from what we initially imaged they would look like.

As noted before, all of these pieces have some moving part and the viewer needs to physically participate in moving the piece in order to understand it. In the boxes this always means opening and closing. In the work I made with Andy the viewer actions are more varied. The first piece requires the viewer to turn a crank, and in the second piece the viewer pulls cords that open doors to reveal paintings. The pieces therefore have an inherent invitation to the viewer to do what he or she is most often not allowed to do: to touch the work in a gallery setting. I recognize the pristine and often esoteric quality of most art viewing experiences and live with it in my paintings, but I also greatly enjoy the rather humble and social qualities of this format. Viewers tend to respond at first tentatively, then with great enthusiasm as they become comfortable with the experience of touching the art.