http://www.anneirwinfineart.com
A multi-media artist, Ms. Kravitz’s sculptures depict human expression: a tall red man reaching for the sky, a child sitting with knees to chest, a pregnant woman, a family grouped saying good-byes. Her approach is both experimental and intuitive. The abstracted forms explore the boundaries of human emotions. Ms. Kravitz is a keen observer of gesture: the tilt of a head, the slope of the shoulders, the turn of a hand or foot. The viewer has the chance to engage with the sculptures and to form an intimacy.
Kravitz hand-builds her forms over armatures, bent and shaped to capture expression using minimal facial features. The artist has worked for many years researching the idea of our bodies as vessels with individual memories and experience stored within each of us. The search for how to express the idea of containment and holding continues.
Beth Hagens writes, “Buried within the self, within the everyday world, within life itself, is a common essence-a shape, a creative vessel in which elements of creation are mixed and transformed…. It is the sacred container of ever-changing cosmic process.”
Article published September 2017:
http://atlantajewishtimes.timesofisrael.com/sculptor-layers-colors-and-emotions-in-enclave/
Bio
Phyllis B. Kravitz BVA, MFA, MAT, ATR-BC
Phyllis is an accomplished multi-media artist and sculptor. She has worked in bronze using the lost wax method, steel, painting, drawing, and collage. Her work has portrayed her life-long passion for nature and psychology. Her interest in physical human change and life cycles is mirrored, she believes, by nature.
This love of nature began early in her childhood when she began collecting rocks and sticks in her baby doll carriage and used them to build little cities between tree roots. After finishing a Masters in Sculpture, Phyllis wanted to use her knowledge of art making and human psychology to work with emotionally disturbed teenagers. She completed a Masters of Art Therapy and started the first therapeutic art therapy program at Hillside Psychiatric Hospital. The program continues to this day. She used materials and the outdoors to further children’s connection to themselves, as it had done for her.
Active in her community, Phyllis has served on various boards and committees of Atlanta organizations. In addition to world travel with her husband of over 50 years, She enjoys time with her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, digging in the dirt, reading, bridge, and friends.
Her work appears in private collections and galleries.
Artist Statement
Phyllis Kravitz Sculptor