By Serge Strosberg, edited by Jim Luce
Living in the heart of New York’s SoHo, I am surrounded by fashion storefronts, light, reflections, music, vibrations, marching crowds, police sirens… This constant flow of energy gives me the inspiration to paint.
The Night Is Young by Serge Strosberg. Photo by Adam Reich.
There are four floors and large windows separating my studio from this world of mass consumption and glamor. At the end of the day, all that is left on the streets is trash from the retail stores or consumers. SoHo is beautiful and frightening at the same time.
Is this neighborhood a vast storefront window reflecting people’s dreams or nightmares? What have modern values become? Some haute-couture marks have become so culturally significant that they have acquired a secondary meaning beyond its branding function.
In vivo In Vitro I by Serge Strosberg. Photo by Brown Cathell.
As a man who was married to a Brazilian fashion model and took photography classes with art director Peter Knapp (Elle, Vogue magazine), I was always immersed in the world of fashion, although being mainly a painter.
The Muse (detail) by Serge Strosberg. Photo by Adam Reich.
Professional models are recruited at a very young age by agencies and their lives are far from glamorous. They are usually not chosen for their personality but solely for their looks. Many of these young women and men project an impression of narcissism which goes in pair with the voyeurism of modern society (more so male society). They are prey for fashion photographers, consumers who see them in magazines or on posters inside the stores, and TV reality show audiences. Their masks hide a much deeper personality that is as complex as other human being’s lives.
Shattered (detail) by Serge Strosberg. Photo by Adam Reich.
As an artist who spends hours with his models, trained by a German expressionist painter, I am more interested in portraying their characters than their beautiful dresses or outer semi-perfection. Unlike fashion photographers who airbrush and work with make-up artists to objectify models, or designers who are only interested in the dresses worn, I give expressions to models from the fashion world on canvas – through painting.
In Vivo In Vitro II by Serge Strosberg. Photo by Adam Reich.
Manhattan’s materialism, narcissism and voyeurism, fake identity, confusion, and alteration of nature through plastic surgery, exaggerated femininity or sexuality are themes that fascinate me. Like a casting director, I post ads in acting studios and meet potential models in bars. The ones I select, I take a few pictures of inside my SoHo studio, asking them to put on an expression of narcissism.
Serge Strosberg’s studio is the perfect place for a cultural brunch –
here the Angela Workman Trio performs. Photo by Victor Medina.
Once I have decided on the right image, I start to create a painting and see what can be added or exaggerated to reinforce my concept. We also go shopping for dresses and wigs. Sometimes, I start from a photography of mannequins behind a storefront and replace them with life models laughing or thinking out loud –or I simply paint the mannequins with the reflection of the real world. I paint logos on the windows that remind us of the omnipresence of branding.
Bad Timing (detail) by Serge Strosberg. Photo by Adam Reich.
Other times, I completely invent the composition starting from a picture I took outside with a model. The model and I exchange ideas, the sitter starts getting into the role and the painting can begin. I outline the details with ink, then gradually add transparent glazes with complementary colors.
Modern dancers Luke Gutgsell and Coco Karol performed at a recent Strosberg brunch.
I usually start with the eyes which are the window of the soul, they are also the hardest detail to concentrate and keep still both for the sitter and the observer. The rest of the body and the background are painted with thicker layers in oil and egg tempera, more intense pigment and larger brushes.
Once I am satisfied with the painting of the “interior,” a portrait reflecting the models personality, I am ready to paint the “exterior,” the world surrounding and this person.
Emily (watercolor, detail) by Serge Strosberg. Photo by Adam Reich.
Using more glazes and stronger light when needed, I paint reflections of streets on the windows of the storefronts with logos that could sound familiar, another person or the same person overlapping parts of a portrait. The technique used to obtain maximum contrast, oil and egg tempera –used in the past to paint religious icons – seems to be the best way to enhance the iconic and sacred look that some young people would like to have in Manhattan.
A recent Art Brunch is Serge Strosberg’s SoHo studio featured a jazz trio. The Studio Art Brunch is a new concept imagined by Serge Strosberg and his friend Celine Basset.
Sometimes, I use vertical formats and exaggerate transparency and reflections in the painting to suggested stained glass. The models are often seen from down under, put on a pedestal, to give them more importance.
I Can See SoHo From My Window (detail) by Serge Strosberg. Photo by Adam Reich.
The final result is a three-dimensional painting with strong color, light contrasts, different layers and ways to read the painting. Every work is a combination of several views suggesting the interior/exterior, with windows or reflections incorporated in the composition, suggesting the contrast between fantasy and the real world.
In short, I would like to be known as “The Expressionist of Fashion.”
Serge Strosberg was born in Antwerp and raised in the United States. Strosberg received his art education in Paris at Academie Julian and at the École Nationale Superieure Des Beaux-Arts. After several successful exhibitions in Europe and Florida, Strosberg relocated to New York in 2008.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2012 Unmasking SoHo after dark, Galerie Brenart, Brussels
2011 Unmasking SoHo after dark, Berkeley Gallery, New York
2011 Antwerp-SoHo, Galerie Ludwig Trossaert, introduced by Ernest Van Buynder, pres. of the “Friends of the MUHKA – Museum for Contemporary Art, Antwerp,” Belgium
2009 Of men and flowers, Norton House, Palm Beach, Florida
2007 Elaine Baker Gallery, Boca Raton, Florida
2006 Art Senat, Paris
Selected Group Exhibitions
2010 Galerie Xavier Nicolas, Paris
2010 Art residency and show at the Shanghai Himalayas Art Museum, China
2010 Looks Good on Paper, DFN Gallery, New York
2008 Die Verborgene Spur- Jewish Paths to Modernity (including works by Lucian Freud, Larry Rivers), Felix Nussbaum Haus, Germany
2008 Humanisme et Expressionisme, Musée de Pontoise, France
(Including works by Soutine, Modigliani, Kitaj, Pearlstein, Balthus)
Awards, Diplomas & Scholarships
2010 Artist-in-residence at the Shanghai Himalayas Art Museum, China
2001 Jan Cockx Prize, awarded by the director of MUHKA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium
1993 Graduation with Honors, graphic designer, Academie Julian, Paris
Selected Public Collections
2010 Shanghai Himalayas Art Museum, China
2009 The Southern District Court of Florida, West Palm beach
2009 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Germany
2008 Museum of Pontoise, France.
2004 Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels
2000 Musee d’Art Judeo-Marocain, Brussels
Upcoming Shows
Art Brunch. Exhibition of Serge Strosberg "Unmasking SoHo after Dark II" and jazz performance by Angela Workman. October 16, 1-3 pm. Admission : $20. 515 Broadway Suite 4-A, New York, N.Y. 10012, NY. Rsvp : cellbasset@gmail.com.
“Unmasking SoHo after Dark.” October 3-28. Opening October 6. Berkeley Gallery. 3 East 43rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10017.
“Antwerp-SoHo.” Galerie Ludwig Trossaert. Antwerp, Belgium. December 2-24.
“Unmasking SoHo after Dark.” Galerie Brenart. December 29-February 12. Brussels, Belgium.
John Lee, Jim Luce, Eunhee and Robert John Kelber relaxing in Serge’s studio.
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