Author: sterlingsart

abstract painter living in Raleigh, NC- follow my blog to help build my mailing list!

Back at the studio…

Hi neighbors, or whoever you are who reads this (Mom?). Anyway, life has been just peachy here and so I’ve directed some of that energy into my studio. Yes I’m still making cubes. I’ve been painting, too.

Some of you may have seen the blog I wrote when I started the piece above. I’ve also commented that these forms seem to want to be contained but not by a rectangle. Recently an attempt to determine if a shaped canvas stretcher was the one’s destiny, by using blue painters tape, I had the happy accident of realizing maybe the polygon containers could (should?) be painted. Also really thrilled with the way the color wraps the edge of this one now that it’s stretched. Will no doubt tinker some more but getting close!

I thought the piece above was done back in 2020 but a couple months ago decided- with this one and several others- to revisit the cartoon line (original doesn’t have one actually- I tried so many times to make these work with no line but…). Sketched this one on my tablet first. Line was painted in two layers- one with a lighter, iridescent color and then the top one with a thin, darker crimson. Didn’t get the brilliant purple of the digital drawing but that’s probably impossible*. Brushing the top line repeatedly let the first line show through and pushed the crimson into a secondary, darker outline of the bottom one. *Yes, there are studies underway for what it might mean to really push line into the foreground…

Sonia Delaunay

Sonia Delaunay was a key figure in the Parisian avant-garde of the interwar years. Born to a Jewish Ukrainian family and raised in Saint Petersburg, at the age of eighteen Delaunay enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, Germany. In 1905 she relocated to Paris, where Post-Impressionism and Cubism were dominant in the city’s galleries. In this highly experimental climate, Delaunay and her husband Robert pioneered Simultanism, a style of abstract painting that emphasises the transcendental effects of the interaction between colours. Although like Carla she is no longer with us she is represented at Bienniale.

#soniadelaunay

Experiments in Form

Yesterday, I packed up some recent work for a group show install that has me pumped up- what an amazing group in which to be included!

Curated by Charlotte Russell and on view at Hartwell in Raleigh, Experiments in Form features artworks by five Triangle-based artists, Sterling Bowen, Abie Harris, Mar Hester, Pete Sack, and Natalia Torres del Valle. Through their own unique process and materials, each artist experiments with spontaneity vs. control, interconnectedness, and the process of making. Below is a pic Charlotte caught of me installing an original composition made just for this show.

The show will be up through August so plenty of time to check it out. Follow Charlotte on IG to get the latest on this and other shows she’s curated, including a reception (TBD).