When fall turns to winter, I respond to the graphic contrasts of snow against dark backgrounds by painting abstracts in black and white. Actually I am using raw umber and pthalo blue In these. What prompts these paintings could be something I see in nature, in a small newspaper clipping, or glimpsed on TV in the set behind the characters. It could be something internal like a vivid dream or emotion that needs to be externalized. Or it could even be an intellectual question like how can I make a white square seem to float in space, in front of gray and black shapes. I influence the viewer’s perception of the space and volume within the canvas by manipulating the range and arrangement of lights and darks, soft or hard edges, shapes of different sizes. The goal is to entice the eye to move around all the parts of the composition. I chose these two paintings for this blog to show the stylistic extremes. Winter Grasses used a prompt from nature in combination with the idea of dividing a wide horizontal canvas with a series of vertical ovals and arches. The abstraction occurs when I use the underlying shapes of the natural scene, and leave out all the details that convey the identity of the objects. Unwelcome Intruders was prompted by a vivid nightmare. The figures are rendered loosely and indistinctly with gestural strokes, painting wet on wet, directly onto the white canvas without a pre-drawing, laying down a wash of gray and immediately painting over it, and continuing to paint into the wet with more layers, paint on top of paint, each layer informing the next with a little bit of its character. In this painting I introduced a third color – yellow ochre, in order to create a warmer gray. These paintings will appear at the State of the Art Gallery in March. I hope this little preview prompts you to see the rest of the exhibit in the gallery or online at soagannex.online