• The sense of smell is often said to be one the most evocative of memory. Ethel Gittlin's recent series of paintings, titled, “I Paint My Life,”read like drifts of scents in immersive dreamscapes. Hints of recollections trigger emotions like delightful floral perfumes. 

• Perhaps it is the colors she uses: lavender and rose, orange and pink. But, there are gritty city smells also, such as the blue and grey that might be urban exhaust fumes in a pair of pieces titled, “On My Way,” and, “Journey.” As if a lovely garden was being recalled while in the town, and busy cities recollected from afar, such as in, “Places,” where “PARIS” is emblazoned over a metropolitan tangle of line and hue, and “NYC” is a barely legible scrawl below. The works affect wondrous moods and feelings of enchanted yet detached displacement like subtle echos, or reminiscences of places she has recently been to and environments just passed through; the gardens, streets, and feelings that beckon beyond the immediate horizon.

• Gittlin’s paintings present us with an array of imagery floating in atmospheric hazes of bright beautiful colors. We easily recognize fragments of organic images - grasses, flowers; while graffiti is everywhere like in the hustle and bustle of an urban center. Her efforts bring together several significant genres and philosophies of abstract painting. Combine the color field work of Mark Rothko with elements of the organic stews of Joan Miro and Helen Frankenthaller, and bring it all into the present with the addition of spray paint and text derived from the graffiti movement which has grown increasingly popular over the last thirty-five years. Gittlin incorporates concepts from popular as well as “high” culture that simply were not available until recently, marking her work as current as it is spontaneous, implying adventures and stories yet to unfold.

In the painting titled, “Making Memories,” Gittlin utilizes images that are clearly botanically based, such as blossoms and clusters of leaves, while also including the presence of a bee or winged insect of some sort amid vivid mists. ”Moroc,” on the other hand, is more mysterious; combining cryptic Mid-Eastern designs, Western script, and glowing fields of brilliant color. Ethel Gittlin depicts the essence of events, places, and objects rather than their physicality alone. She focuses on intangibles rather than direct imitation, concentrating on a subject’s truer nature in the metaphysical sense. “Out There” includes a red female mouth like a lipstick imprint. The viewer may decide if these lips depict a specific event or person, or if they represent a more general statement. “Bold Fusion” combines a fusion of all of these elements, just as the title implies. An artwork can be an object unto itself which need not represent anything. Yet, in her paintings, like cloud gazing, we delight in using our imaginations and intelligence to interpret the imagery.