Arts

Talk about the true surfaces of artist Lynne Golob Gelfman

Detail from canvas by Lynne Golob Gelfman.

The abstract paintings of Miami-based Lynne Golob Gelfman are all about surface. Surfaces that seem to shimmer and move, sometimes looking like waves rippling on the beach, or the shifting sand beneath them. At other times they can be reminiscent of topographical aerial images of a desert landscape, or a close-up of a rolling sand dune. All fragments of a view of nature.

These surfaces are also lovingly tended to, as Gelfman literally works to makes them smooth, adding another visual layer to her canvases, which the viewer only discovers on close inspection. And nature has indeed been her inspiration. Over the years — and after extensive travel to ecologically compelling terrain such as North Africa and Brazil — she has made series of paintings, with titles such as “Oil and Sand” and “Cloud/Water/Sand.” Many of these have been exhibited at various galleries, including Fredric Snitzer and Alejandra von Hartz (where one of her pieces is part of the current summer group show), and in the collections of museums, including the Pérez Art Museum Miami, where one of her paintings is hanging in an inaugural show for the exhibit “Americana: Formalizing Craft.”

Now, nine of her painting series created over four decades have been compiled in a book, which is in itself a piece of art, called “Trued Surface.”

Gelfman will talk about her book, her influences and her process in a conversation with PAMM’s chief curator, Tobias Ostrander, on Saturday, July 26, and sign her books, which can be found in the museum’s bookshop. A New York native with a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University School of the Arts, Gelfman will likely talk about the textiles and artifacts collected in far-flung places that have informed her art; her love of specific mark-making; and how she achieves the subtle, distinct coloring on her beautiful canvases.

Detail of Gelfman&squot;s 2014 "thru4."

Lynne Golob Gelfman conversation and book signing of “Trued Surface” takes place on Saturday, July 26, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at PAMM, 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; www.pamm.org. Detail of Gelfman’s 2014 “Thru4.”