Just Beautiful!



 



Open Studio Tour

 

Liz Goldberg working with Raymond Ercoli

Liz Goldberg and Raymond Ercoli collaborate seamlessly to produce animation, painting, and graphics based on Diva, Divo, and Dance.  Their art is experimental and lighthearted -- a fusion of two strong personalities, blending line, surface texture, and movement resulting in a crossover between painting and film.  They are currently working on a multimedia dance performance with the Melanie Stewart Dance Company, where the animation will become a living environment as dancers move through in a postmodern Tango.

Their latest animated film is about the Divas and Divos of Flamenco, and the flamboyant personality and empowerment they represent.  The film is an interaction of color, line, and gesture; and the complex suggestive depiction of character motivation is developed through graphic means.  Meticulously crafted, their films are hand-drawn and painted --requiring thousands of drawings; and, many of the large scale drawings and paintings in the "Divas and Divos" series (by Goldberg and the  "Video Portraits Series" byGoldberg-Ercoli ) have become cells in the film.  Together, these powerful artists have created a captivating Crossover: an interwoven theatrical visual dance that is sensual, rhythmic, and profound.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liz Goldberg

My work is an exploration of the theme of the Diva – the flamboyantly uninhibited female and the personal and political empowerment she represents.

As a painter, graphic artist, and animator I have been inspired by puppets and absurdist theatre. As subject matter, the images I am often concerned with are puppet –like characters reminiscent of Alferd Jarry’s forerunner of Absurdist theater, Ubu-Roi; the buffoons of modernist playwright Michel de Ghelderode and the symbolist and political figures of European puppet theater.

As a point of departure, there is a degree of abstraction in a puppet. I find this to be a freeing force, giving me considerable license to explore colorist and gestural solutions to the depiction of contradictions these images embody: awkward yet fluid, wooden yet alive, constrained yet brashly extroverted personalities, often yet mischievous, egotistical, erotic, even magical exaggerations of human behavior.

I have developed some of these diva and puppet-inspired works into animated films requiring thousands of drawings. The process of animation has, in turn, influenced my full scale works-on-paper producing diptychs, triptychs, and serial prints with progressive deviations.

On a formal level, I think of myself as a colorist who is interested in the interaction between color, line and gesture and in the complex and suggestive depiction of interior character motivation and personality through graphic means.

Most of my work is on Arches, BFK, or handmade paper. A paper surface allows me the ability to explore a mixed palette of color media with a calligraphic freedom that would be inhibited on canvas.

I currently teach fashion drawing at Drexel University and drawing for fashion and architecture at Philadelphia University.

I hold an MFA from Pratt Institute and an honors BFA from York University.

My work has been exhibited both nationally and abroad; I am currently represented by Amsterdam Whitney Gallery in NYC, and GalleriEChiz in Pittsburgh.

 RAYMOND ERCOLI  teaches fashion illustration at Philadelphia University and the Art Institute of Philadelphia.
　He has been at it since 1979, when as a Glassboro State(now Rowan University) fine art undergrad, he won Philly icon Zipperhead’s name the store contest. ( he also designed the logo). His mens’ and womens’ fashions- carried by over 1000 specialty boutiques as well as Bloomingdale’s, Barney’s , Urban Outfitters and Fred Segal L.A.- have been featured in Details, Mademoiselle, and Vogue. Raymond costumed dance and theater including the Fringe Festival productions of Claire in 2007, Q in 2002 and In My Body 2010.　

DIVOMENCO POP

BY RAYMOND ERCOLI and LIZ GOLDBERG

Animation: 5min. 35 sec. 2011