Polly Apfelbaum

Image courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London.

Apfelbaum studied painting and printmaking at the Tyler School of Art in Pennsylvania, receiving her BFA in 1978. She later moved to New York City, where she was inspired by installation art, Colour Field painting, and a generation of artists, many of them women, who represented the early crossover between fine art and design, including Anni Albers, Sonia Delaunay, and Sheila Hicks.

She first rose to prominence in the 1990s with what she calls her “fallen paintings,” featuring large-scale textile works and handmade rugs arranged on the floor, sometimes inviting viewers to walk on them. Since then, she has become known for her immersive environments that engage the floors, walls and ceilings.

Abfelbaum describes herself as an “in-between artist,” working at the intersection of painting and sculpture, narrative and abstraction, form and colour, control and chance. Her ongoing series of woodblock prints reflects this approach. As in her fabric works, she balances careful planning with unpredictability. Sometimes using hundreds of carved and inked blocks, she layers bright colours to form dynamic abstract motifs.

Image courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London.

Extending her longstanding engagement with ceramics, Apfelbaum has developed a body of wall-mounted works following a residency at Arcadia University, Pennsylvania, near to where she grew up. These works, which read like abstract paintings, draw on Pennsylvania German art, popular music and traditional craft practices such as quilting. “The goal is to interpret the personal as political,” she explains, underscoring her commitment to elevating creative forms, such as craft and design, which have historically been associated with women and the domestic sphere.

Among the many awards the artist has received, she is the recipient of a 2026 grant from the Pollock Krasner Foundation.