HELEN MARDEN

Begun in 2023 as Marden cared for her husband, Brice, and made over the months following his passing, the Grief Paintings are intimately scaled abstractions created with resin, powdered pigment, ink, and natural objects. Flowing layers of vivid color and assemblages of feathers, shells, and sea glass extend beyond the paintings’ circular supports. Imbued with the spirit of life, love, and creativity, this body of work takes on new meaning in accord with the poem “Growing Up in America” by Rene Ricard, a longtime friend of the couple.

Growing Up in America

Then love takes us to faraway places

Certain theaters,

Public toilets, jail, and that long highway we all hitch-hike alone.

Then the feathers

of the years fly from their pillows

It was all filmed on that old

nitrate stock—the type that self-

destructs after a while—so, there are

no pictures left. I’m sorry—Just

feeling. Feelings, like clouds

Cloud upon cloud in a sky full

of clouds

—Rene Ricard

This fall, Gagosian will publish a monograph on Helen Marden’s paintings that includes an essay by Anna Godbersen and a conversation between the artist and Kiki Smith.

Helen Marden was born in 1941 in Pittsburgh and lives and works in New York City; Tivoli, New York; Marrakech, Morocco; and Nevis, St. Kitts and Nevis. Group exhibitions include Who Chooses Who, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1994); Selections Summer ‘96, Drawing Center, New York (1996); Couples Discourse (2006) and Uncanny Congruences (2013), Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, University Park. She participated in the Whitney Biennial, New York (1995), and The Last Brucennial, Bruce High Quality Foundation, New York (2014).