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. Apfel’s work explores memory, language, and the passage of time through meticulously rendered compositions that reference letters, stamps, and printed ephemera.
Her work has been exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, including presentations at Morgan Lehman Gallery, Troutbeck Gallery, the Woodstock Art Association & Museum, and the Arts Center of the Capital Region. Apfel’s paintings are held in numerous public collections, including The Hyde Collection, The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, The Albany Institute of History & Art, SUNY Albany Museum, and The Art Students League of New York. Capital Group Corporate Collection, London, UK, Yangdeng Art Museum, Guizhou Province, China.
Recent exhibitions include: Wish You Were Here, Hotchkiss School (Lakeville, CT, 2 person), Letters Home, Troutbeck (Amenia, NY, solo) curated by The Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), Greater Valley Artists, Foreland (Catskill, NY, solo), Architect[ural], The Hyde Collection, (Glens Falls, NY), Vernacular Yet Curious, Yangdeng Art Museum (Guizhou, China), 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).
In September 2026, Apfel will be having a solo show at the Morgan Lehman Gallery in NY.