Remnants of the past: old stamps, pages of diaries, pieces from well-thumbed books are my subjects. Often mistaken for collage, my trompe l’oeil compositions push our comprehension of the tangible.
Each letter or piece of paper is painted with multiple layers of acrylic paint. The writing is done with archival pens. I work from real letters and memorabilia that I have gathered over many years and from all over the world.
Mining beauty from old letters and old things, my paintings are nostalgic reminders of things that no longer exist and histories of bygone times. In old letters, we find loved ones, parents, old friends, and our old selves.
Space and color are key elements in these minimal compositions as the ephemera transform into abstract shapes.
Nudging the boundaries between language, painting and abstraction, my pictures present life not as then versus now, but as an inescapable circle of time and memory.
Although the human figure is absent from my work, my work is deeply rooted in the human condition.
Fern Apfel is a Hudson Valley artist who specializes in making paintings with hand written text. She is a two-time recipient of the Individual Artists Grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a four-time recipient of a Mohawk Hudson Regional Purchase Award.
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In 2022, Apfel received the Yasuo Kuniyoshi Award from the Woodstock Art Association and Museum “given to a contemporary artist who has exemplified outstanding achievement over the past year and has an overall track record of excellence.” In 2024, Apfel was awarded the Jane Altes Award for Artist Excellence at the Arts Center of the Capital Region (Troy, NY).
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Apfel’s paintings are in the permanent collections of The Hyde Collection, The Tang Teaching Museum, The Albany Institute of History & Art, SUNY Albany Museum, The Shaker Museum, The Columbia County Historical Society and Museum, The Art Students League of NY, Fidelity Investments, NY, Kidder Peabody & Co., Capital Group Corporate Collection, London and Yangdeng Art Museum, Guizhou Province, China
Currently, Apfel’s piece, Skyline, is included in Architect[ural], at The Hyde Collection where she is honored to be in the company of such luminaries as Richard Anuszkiewicz, Dorothy Dehner, Philip Guston, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt and others.
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Selected by Curator Jesse Aran Greenberg, Apfel is currently a featured artist at Foundwork.
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In the fall (2025), Apfel will be in a two-person show in the Tremaine Gallery at The Hotchkiss School (Lakeville, CT) and in Art as Memoir at the Spencertown Academy (Spencertown, NY).
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Recent exhibitions include: Letters Home, Troutbeck (Amenia, NY, solo) curated by The Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), Greater Valley Artists, Foreland (Catskill, NY, solo), Bernay Fine Art (Great Barrington, MA), Movement, Dorsky Museum, SUNY New Paltz (New Paltz, NY), I Say: Women Artists and the Words They Use, The Hotchkiss School (Lakeville, CT), Abide with Me, The Arts Center of the Capital Region (Troy, NY, solo), Sacred Geometry, Woodstock Art Association & Museum (Woodstock, NY, solo), What is Lost, Garage Gallery (Beacon, NY, solo) Counting the Seconds Between Lightning and Thunder at the Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY).