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Selina
Trieff, from New York City, has been painting and exhibiting for over 50 years.
One of the most extraordinary artists of her generation, she was born in Brooklyn
in 1934, studied at the Art Students League in New York in 1951 with Morris
Kantor, at Brooklyn College from 1951 to 1955 with Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko,
and in 1955 with Hans Hoffman. Of her early experience at Brooklyn College
the artist has said, "From Reinhardt and Rothko I learned that art is
a philosophical exploration and that art making involves a mysterious process
of self-discovery." Although she most often paints figures and animals,
Trieff considers herself an abstract artist, the painting being most importantly
about composition, form, shape and color. In their abstraction her figures
possess an enigmatic spiritual quality, enhanced by the use of rough gold
halos around the figures and in the backgrounds, creating an element of anticipation
and mystery. The strangeness of the figures and creatures grabs ones attention,
they are archetypal and iconographic figures, with a pensive theatrical quality
and an eerily playful sense of humor.