Taking Chances and Synchronicity

What is creating without risk? It doesn't exist in my mind.

It's the sensation in my stomach when I have a light bulb moment, the one that at first thought is Einstein worthy, (at least I think so!), the excitement, the anxiousness of wanting to dive right in, that's what sets my soul on fire as an artist,. Recently I had a burning desire to paint unstretched canvas. I had seen work by Frank Bowling that resonated deeply with my artistic process and my goals of pushing beyond my comfort zone with materials and how I utitilzed them in my work. I also had been researching art materials to bring along with me in September for a two week long residency in France, and guess what, I had landed on unstretched canvas.

An upcoming exhibition at The Tag Gallery in Boston themed A Midsummer Night's Dream, prompted me to begin the experiment with unstretched canvas and brighter, bolder use of color and playing with muting color on the second piece. I also wanted to find a way to incorporate thread into the work, yes thread. So I purchased a few different heavy weight threads from a local thread manufacturer. I ordered acrylic spray paints in beautiful bright colors of pink, neon orange, ranges of blue, red and yellow. My hope was to create various areas of sprayed paint effects to contrast the brush painted areas. I used paper with torn edges to create interesting patterns of sproy paint and also created speckling by depressing the spray less than half way. On the top of Shifting Light, I sewed along the edge to create a textural focal point, unfortunately my photo had to be cropped and I lost this detail, but it is there!

Diving In

At the same time I had begun work on the MIdsummer Nights exhibition, I was contacted by the Steidel Contemporary Gallery from the Palm Beach area regarding joining them for the upcoming winter season. In order for me to make this opportunity feasible I would have to paint large canvases and send them unstretched. This was truly an exciting on many fronts, exposure in the Palm Beach market and a reason to paint very large pieces, something I love to do. Because I had been painting on unstretched canvas the idea of working this way was exciting and challenging, so I accepted the opportunity!

As they say, one thing leads to another. The longer I've been creating as a painter, the more I've witnessed the correlations between my willingness to take a chance and the synchronicity that soon follows. I'm beyond thrilled to take this step in my artistic journey. As a footnote, I ended up ordering stretcher bars for the large pieces heading to Steidel, the canvases were going to be way too big for me to manuever in the studio without temporary support, but they will be sent unstretched as planned. This is going to be an amazing experience, I'll keep you posted!

As always, thank you for supporting my endeavors,

Angelique

Shifting Light

The Tag Gallery

Steidel Contemporary