By allowing an intuitive approach to guide me in my efforts as an artist, visual fragments of my past seem to appear in my work at a basic level. Growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a city of steel mills, I saw the vestige of years of smoke and soot spewed from the steel mills create a dark aged patina on many of the old buildings. This gritty, industrial city and its long winters of overcast skies have left an unmistakable and indelible mark on my aesthetics and subsequently in my work.
The limited use of color and raw textural surfaces apparent throughout my work offer further evidence of those early visual experiences. My colors are generally more muted and gray, seldom bright and pure. But within that range of hues, I explore their subtlety and energy. The textural quality of my paintings relates to a feeling of attachment to history, substance and timelessness. It conjures a sense of evolution…rather than just the present.
Photo taken by Suhail Arastu.
I continue to seek the balance between unexpected accidents and deliberate intention… and the seemingly magical transmutations that can occur. Using tar, metals, enamel paints, and other mixed media materials, the heavily applied and energetically reworked surfaces create a gritty and tactile base from which organic abstract forms appear below and above the surface. For me, the act of creating is simply about the energy of discovery.
sandy.whitbysa@gmail.com