LandEscape Art Review // Special Issue | Page 96

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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Gail Factor

For Gail Factor , painting is a means to access serenity , a calm soul . Artists throughout history have created bodies of work in an effort to solve their personal aesthetic dilemma . Laid at the feet of Factor ’ s quandary is a life ’ s work . The unrelenting impulse to create something of beauty and personal truth has resulted in five decades of focused and committed painting ; a daily offering of sorts , whereby the act itself generates luminosity and eradicates darkness .

Harmonizing rich color , tone and texture , Factor strives for pure abstraction , but as images emerge , the past often makes an unwitting appearance . Memories surface and integrate into the visual field . With only slight reference to the tangible world , she takes the viewer along on a journey through an altered reality , the unknown . She is after a synthesis of it all . Reaching for an archetype of her life experience , in paint .
Art is to the eye , as music is to the ear .
“ Any resemblance to reality is merely coincidental .” -- Gail Factor
Gail Factor passed away at the age of seventy on July 16 , 2013 , after a brief illness . The cause of death was pancreatic cancer . She was a wonderful mother , a dear friend , music lover , gardener , patron of the arts , and a masterful painter whose work explored the beauty at the fine line between realism and abstraction .
Gail ’ s maiden name was Polayes . She was born in Jersey City , New Jersey , moved with her family to Chicago , took painting classes as a five year old at the Art Institute of Chicago , moved to Los Angeles , and spent most of her childhood there . After gaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree degree at the University of Southern California , she studied art at Yale University and in Europe .
With her first husband , the architect Jon Jerde , she had two children during the 1960s , Christopher and Jennifer . A decade later , with her second husband , the developer and philanthropist Davis Factor , Jr ., she had a daughter , Emily .
Gail ’ s children recall a mother whose passion for art and life were inseparable .
Christopher : “ Mom parented like she painted : lovingly . She never took us for granted , and we never doubted her undying devotion to care for us whenever we needed her . She was an amazing mother , and now that she is gone , we are in even greater appreciation for how she lived her life as a mother and friend .”
Jennifer : “ Mom often expressed gratitude for the depth of her friendships . She believed that the making of great friends is a skill--one that she had honed over the course of her lifetime--and based on the outpouring of support the past few days I ' d say she was right .”
Emily : “ In her life , Mom created , loved , and painted with pure compassion and touched the hearts of many . Her vision will always remain present in the legacy of art she leaves with us . Her spirit full of boundless inspiration and beauty travels onward .”
Gail studied with the painters Wolf Kahn and Wayne Thiebaud , but her work was always distinctly and uniquely her own . Behind Gail ’ s gentle , soft-spoken façade lay a fierce intelligence , a strong will , and the willingness to go her own way . Landscapes became the principal focus of her art when she was in kindergarten . For the next sixty-five years , she continued to strip away what was unessential from her paintings , pushing to get at the core of things . The difference between the abstract and the representational became meaningless . Her paintings were beautiful , intensely heartfelt , and often haunting .
In an art world dominated by shameless self-promoters , Gail never called attention to herself . Her work spoke for itself . You either understood the integrity of it or you missed it . Her paintings fundamentally reflected who she was .
Gail distained all that was loud , shallow , and complacent in modern art . She loved this quote by the choreographer Martha Graham :
“ There is a vitality , a life force , a quickening that is translated through you into action , and because there is only one of you in all time , this expression is unique . And if you block it , it will never exist through any other medium and be lost , the world will not have it .
It is not your business to determine how good it is , nor how valuable it is , nor how it compares with other expressions . It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly , to keep the channel open . You do not have to believe in yourself or your work . You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you . Keep the channel open .
No artist is pleased ... there is no satisfaction whatever at any time .
There is only a queer , divine dissatisfaction ; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the rest .”