Glenn Goldberg (b. 1953, Bronx, NY; lives/works: Queens, NY) occupies a singular position within the discourse of contemporary painting. Though Goldberg emerged in the early 1980s in proximity to the artists associated with both the Minimalist and New Image movements, such as Susan Rothenberg and Jennifer Bartlett, his practice diverged significantly in its orientation and tone. Goldberg’s labour-intensive work is a rigorous commitment to being personal and handmade. His practice carries recurring motifs, yet the work remains fundamentally resistant to narrative. Elusive and dreamlike sequences are held tight to the picture plane, as references to natural forms and grids intersect, create a sense of structure, order, and intervals. “There are no birds in my work,” Goldberg says of his recent paintings, which prominently feature the silhouette of a bird. This paradox is telling: while the avian form recurs, it operates less as subject and more as structure—a compositional armature upon which his meditative practice unfolds. Through this idiosyncratic visual language that sheds the representational burden of the image, Goldberg maintains a deliberate, stitch-like method of mark-making, the surfaces evoke a wide range of visual traditions rooted in devotional craft; remaining precise yet organic. An entirely additive process, thin washes of paint are layered slowly and deliberately, allowing earlier marks and decisions to remain visible within the final composition. This transparency creates a sense of temporal depth as nothing is erased, only softened or muted through repetition and overlay. The paintings accumulate presence over time, their surfaces revealing a record of ongoing attention and adjustment. Recent works bear the title An Other Place, a phrase that underscores the liminal, unlocatable nature of the images themselves. Neither entirely abstract nor representational, they function as portals to An Other space. Grounded in soft, subtly modulated colour fields, rendered in pale blues and earthy tones that privilege attentiveness over immediacy, these vulnerable, honest, and quiet choices in Goldberg’s colour theory recall late modernist painters, such as Morris Louis and Agnes Martin.

Works

An Other Place An Other Place
An Other Place
2026

Fairs

Art Palm Beach
Palm Beach County Convention Center
January 28 - February 1, 2027
Booth 102
Art Palm Beach

Public Collections

Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Bronx Museum, The Bronx, NY
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco, CA
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
J.P. Morgan Chase Art Collection, New York
NY Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Museum of National Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY