Original Pastel Drawing No. 2007 by Erik Sulander on Paper

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Pastel original on paper by Erik Sulander, signed, Unframed. This composition speaks in the language of form and color alone, … Read more Pastel original on paper by Erik Sulander, signed, Unframed. This composition speaks in the language of form and color alone, dispensing with representation in favor of elemental presence. The central yellow shape—rounded yet imprecise, like the echo of a sun or a vessel—floats within a deep, slate-blue field bordered by an earthen green, its luminous weight radiating quiet authority. It is not a form meant to describe anything external; rather, it is a gesture toward inner clarity, a distillation.

As a master painter might say: This is not about objects. This is about pressure and release. About the dialogue between shape and space, mass and breath. The yellow is not painted as much as it is pressed into being—buoyant yet grounded by the muted ochre and salmon tones below, which root the composition in an almost primal substrate.

Edges waver gently, resisting mechanical precision. The visible marks—delicate graphite lines—are not corrections or underdrawing, but remnants of the artist’s thought. Like traces of memory, they map the evolution of form without insisting on resolution. These lines serve as quiet counterpoints to the large color fields, inviting the viewer to attend to process, to the act of painting itself as a slow meditation.

This work operates in the legacy of painters like Rothko or Diebenkorn—not in imitation, but in intent. It seeks not to depict, but to hold. To hold space, to hold light, and to hold silence. A painting such as this asks not, “What is it?” but rather, “How does it make you stay?” See less