acknowledgments + résumé

“At the Museum of Arts and Sciences, we are particularly interested in work that explores the intersection of art and science and the visual articulation of scientific observations and mathematical concepts. Resa Blatman is among a growing number of professionals in the United States to not only celebrate this intersection but also influence the direction of contemporary installation artwork through the combination of art and science. She uses art to teach complex scientific theory in an effective and compelling manner that is rare and exciting, making both art and science more accessible to wider audiences.

As artists, we must push the limitations of technique, media, and message—innovating, always—if we are to engage viewers on multiple levels. Resa’s work ignites curiosity and that is exactly where art must be today.”
— Susan Welsh, Executive Director, Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon, Georgia

“Resa Blatman’s work explores the contradictory nature of humankind’s relationship to the natural world. Sublime rendering skills ensnare the viewer into a classical study of polar bears, warblers, and big horn elk, made modern by jarring cut edges and fecund abundance in unexpected places. Painted lushly in viridians, ambers, and terre verte, flora and fauna spawn in places they shouldn’t, invading icy vistas that should be pristine and untouched. Equally, her work can invade one’s viewing space, as oily waterfalls cascade off the wall and unsettle one’s view. The push/pull of beautiful realism and visceral abstraction epitomizes the relationship Blatman creates between man and nature.”
— John Dorsey, Director, Foster Gallery, Noble and Greenough School, Dedham, Massachusetts

“Resa Blatman’s fractured and layered relief paintings are suggestive of landscapes in flux. Her relationship to the first-hand observation of these glacial landscapes is heavily mediated, like most people’s relationship to the environment. Blatman’s quintessentially post-modern paintings are montages of altered, appropriated photographs representing narrative time as layered. They seem both timeless and apocalyptic. These beautiful yet ominous paintings offer both a premonition and a requiem for a fragile environment — a melancholic sublime.” — Amy Schlegel, former Director of Galleries and Collections, Tufts University Arts Center

“Resa Blatman’s exuberant paintings, full of flash, dazzle, and baroque flourishes, have over the years become increasingly architectural. You can lose yourself in the illusions she creates with paintings… The viewer’s eye bandies about, from depth to surface to shadow to off the very edge of the painting. The variety of technique complements the subject matter — life as teeming and lush, almost beyond comprehension.” — Partial review by Cate McQuaid, Boston Globe