Algebra is a portrait of Frank Galuszka’s daughter Greta, doing her algebra homework in his Germantown studio. Greta wears a backward Los Angeles Angels cap and big “fly-girl” earrings. The gears in front of her show her brain working. She is considering an abstract process, so Galuszka situates her in an abstract space: a gold-colored field covered with mica collected from the Wissahickon Creek and attached to the surface with wax. He comments, “Algebra was my first mica painting. I didn’t want the surface of my paintings to be in contact with the same world that they were being viewed from. What that created was not only something you can see through, giving that feeling of space, but also the materiality of the mica itself (which almost contradicts itself by being transparent).” With its mica and golden paint, Algebra shines like an ancient icon—in fact, cultures around the world used mica to add sparkle to art and cosmetics prior to the invention of modern glitter in the 1930s.
Frank Galuszka studied at Syracuse University and the Tyler School of Art of Temple University. For many years he was a Professor of Art at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Galuszka has had many solo and group exhibitions, including at Woodmere, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the National Academy of Design (New York), and the National Academy of Sciences (Washington, D.C.), as well as in Italy, England, China, and Japan. In addition, Galuszka served on the Philadelphia Art Commission from 1988 through 1992; from 1994 to 1999, he was the president of the American Society for Cybernetics.
