Pamela Berkeley makes paintings from close and direct observation. She combines still life objects (some arranged as magical altars), landscape, portraiture of people and animals. Her main preoccupation in painting is the tension between the still objects close to the picture plane and the distant imagery that is farthest away. Foreground and what is behind are of equal importance, painted at the same time, side by side, locked into each other. There is no background. In fact, in a work of lace curtains, some holes are made of paint, not the threads.
Within her tightly drawn work, her underlying love of abstract painting shows in her manipulation of design, color, paint and brushwork.
