the last opening of the year is upon us and we are thrilled to be exhibiting three strong female painters jenny nelson, laura sanders and mary nelson sinclair. we specifically teamed them together to show the importance of brushstrokes and how powerful the brush can be on the canvas. each of these painters uses their brushstrokes to move the viewer eyes across their paintings. their brush work is their strength. whether approaching an abstract or defining the figure they know how to move the paint with confidence.
jenny nelson
jenny nelson attended maine college of art in portland, maine, and graduated with a bfa from bard college where she received a scholarship to the lacoste school of the arts in france. she has been living and working in woodstock, new york for 18 years. her early artistic training was focused on the classical and representational but it has always been her natural instinct to depict the surroundings in abstract forms. most of the paintings evolve as an intuitive reaction to her surroundings, be it interior space, inner space, or landscape. to evoke this kind of sensory memory in her work jenny applies many layers of paint, using gesture and an internal sense of color. traces of previous layers will remain visible, allowing colors to interact in ways they could not have anticipated. her compositions develop through a series of decisions that are both conscious and unconscious. with great sensitivity to these evolving colors and forms, a very personal abstract language emerges. she tends to focus on particular shapes or compositions for long periods of time resulting in a series of closely related paintings. the paintings are an ongoing process of addition and subtraction until everything on the canvas co-exists with a depth and intensity that seems balanced.
laura sanders
laura sanders is a figurative painter whose paintings of people in oceans, lakes and swimming pools capture the realistic sense of the figure and the water. she works very closely with her photography and that is where the random or unexpected enters the work. during a photo session, sometimes something she may have planned as the focus ends up looking different than in her minds eye and that moment leads her into another direction. she spends hours pouring through photographs to find ones that capture the feeling or idea she had in mind. photoshop is incorporated to patch together images to form a unique composition. she is a skilled painter who has the ability to capture light through reflections using color and brushstrokes as her tools. she received her bachelor of fine arts from the columbus college of art and design in ohio in 1988. laura recently received several grants and awards including the ohio arts council individual excellence award in 2009 and in 2006
the paintings in chemistry: vapors, polymers, pheromones and light are inspired in large part by the book the man who planted trees, by jim robbins. this book is about the amazing work of david milarch, who is planting clones of ancient trees all over the world. the story of david is told within the context of the fascinating scientific knowledge we have just begun to discover about trees. of particular interest to me is the “chemical milieu” of the forest. this mixture of turpenes, isoprenes, ethers, carbonyls, hormones and other compounds affect so many things like cloud formation, temperature, animal behavior, tree communication and human health. add to that the human contributions of polymers, pesticides, pollution and CO2 and we are awash in a chemical stew of influence that we are only beginning to understand.
in my work i paint directly, wet on wet, using the materiality of the paint to sculpt flesh and bones, flora and fauna. i want to construct a visceral experience that feels empirical and goes beyond the descriptive to explore the physicality of the paint. my subject matter joins the genres of landscape and figurative painting, portraying the figure as both natural and invasive to the landscape. in my paintings the human body, defined and distorted by sun, water, firelight and the green leafy light of the forest, coexists with the dazzle of manmade materials.
humans are transforming the world. we have created long chain molecules that defy the normal decomposition processes nature has evolved. i believe that our relationship to nature, physically and psychologically, is now the most pressing and important issue of our time. but who would think that danger would sneak up on us in such a beautiful and optically pleasurable way? it can be as beautiful as the sunlight shining through a plastic bottle reflecting spring blossoms. beauty can be a false messenger, silencing the alarms and telling us everything is okay. these were some of my thoughts while i created this body of work over the last several years.
-laura sanders 2019
mary nelson sinclair
mary nelson sinclair grew up in dallas and received her bachelor of fine arts in painting and printmaking from the pratt institute in 2008. her abstract paintings have a strong visual language accentuated by her color palette and materials used to make her gestural markings. she lives and works in millbrook, ny. more insight into what inspires mary nelson in a recent interview by the flair index.
“my process in making work is purely meditative. i do not really plan what is going to happen on the canvas. it comes as i go.”
“relinquish” is a realization of my creative process and how new motherhood has transformed my practice. this body of work began at the very beginning of my pregnancy and came organically, with my intuition leading me through the process. i began with a canvas and poured the paint directly on in an attempt to capture the medium in its moment of movement. the essence of motion and saturation of hues was blatant.
when i returned to my studio after the arrival of my baby, everything in my life had changed and i felt paralyzed. trying to recapture the techniques that i had previously developed was a bigger challenge than i had anticipated. i had treated motherhood in a similar vein, thinking i had figured it out and that i knew what to expect. these roles, artist and mother, have informed one another. i have learned that i cannot have full control over either situation, but i can act as a guide in both scenarios. working abstractly means that there is not a finite image that i am working towards. i can plan for a piece, choose a palette, and begin with a composition in mind, but ultimately the paint will take its own course and i can be there to manipulate it, with the end result possibly being different than what i initially imagined.
in the end, the most successful outcomes are a result of knowing when to let some things “be”. by surrendering myself to the unknown and letting go of my need to control, i have found clarity in life and in my work.
-mary nelson sinclair 2019
all available work by each artist can be viewed on the artists page of our site under the artist's individual tab. click on the artist’s image to see all work including sizing and pricing. the opening reception with jenny nelson + laura sanders + mary nelson sinclair is friday, november 1st from 6-8 pm. please call the gallery if you have any further questions.