POSKA 2018

Introduction

From a dry deckle edge of a handmade sheet of paper, the idea began to grow.

Through the years when I have added a new artist to the gallery’s stable, I have always tried to do so keeping particular criteria in mind. It is important to me that an artist makes a visual statement which enhances our understanding of ourselves and conveys innovation in the use of material and process. This is obvious in the work of Roland Poska. It is difficult to think of another artist who is so closely associated with making their art using cotton fiber. Poska found his voice in this unusual material. He mixed the fiber with pure powder pigment and water to make pulp in a variety of consistencies, from oatmeal to bread dough. Poska’s labor intensive process of hand-manipulating this material produced works of art of pure beauty. Because he passed away in 2017, I did not have the opportunity tomeet Roland Poska. This past spring I traveled to his home of Rockford, IL, to spend time with his widow Louise and his friend Steve Pitkin, the two individuals who maintained his estate. I wish to thank them for their enthusiasm and trust. I learned that Poska was a man of great character who sought to eliminate our perceived differences in class, economic status and race. He embraced equality and insisted that there was good in everyone. His hope was that all of humanity would, eventually, come to this realization. It is with great pleasure that I now represent the estate of this important artist who influenced so many others. I am pleased and proud to make this introduction and to bring his work to a larger audience. Jerald L. Melberg

Perhaps everything in the universe, indeed the universe itself, is the result of forces forever meeting, or parting.

Where forces meet, or part. From this eternal process, everything springs eternal.

It is from what is unseen that everything manifests itself in continuous shifting forms.

We Meet, We Grow, And We Part.

From nothing to something, the first is incomprehensible, but, so is the second,

the process of creation.

UNTITLED c 1970s Cotton Fiber and Pigment

Roland Poska 2012

108 x 37 1/2 inches JMG19034 / P001L