Gordon Sizelove "Night Sky" Acrylic on Canvas, Abstract Pointillist Painting in Cobalt Blue, Bay Area California Art, Original 18 X 24 Inches, 2026

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Round dabs of cobalt, ultramarine, sky blue, teal green and deep navy overlap across the canvas in a dense, shimmering … Read more Round dabs of cobalt, ultramarine, sky blue, teal green and deep navy overlap across the canvas in a dense, shimmering field, lighter dots floating over darker ones like stars scattered through an evening sky. Each dot is a single deliberate touch of paint with softly irregular edges, and where one eclipses another a new shade appears in the overlap. Sizelove builds such fields by placing spots of color along a drawn, curving line and continuing until the canvas is full, varying the forms on purpose so they feel natural rather than mechanical. The blues deepen and brighten across the surface, and the whole canvas seems to breathe slowly.

In blue-leaning rooms it reads as a cool, enlivening note: above a navy sofa, in a bedroom with white linen and pale oak, or beside a window in a home office. Brass lamps, gray stone and natural wool bring out its depth, and a crisp white wall lets the dots glow. At eighteen by twenty-four inches it suits a single wall as easily as a pair or a small grouping.

Acrylic on Canvas, 18 x 24 x 1.5 in (45.7 × 61 × 3.8 cm). Unframed.

Sizelove begins each acrylic painting by drawing a curved, flowing pencil line across the canvas, mapping the proportions and movement of the composition. He then places spots and strokes of color along those lines to reinforce them, and keeps adding color until the canvas is full. Overlapping marks eclipse one another and mix new colors where they meet, and he varies each form on purpose so the surface feels natural. The result is a shallow, topographical field of color.

Gordon Sizelove (b. 1953, Boston) is a San Francisco painter who works in acrylic, pastel, charcoal and pencil. Raised in Springfield and Worcester, Massachusetts, he moved west in 1972 to attend the San Francisco Art Institute, studying with Sam Tchakalian, Julius Hatofsky, Tom Holland and Robert Hudson, and earned his MFA in Painting in 1979.

After a teaching credential from San Francisco State University, he taught art in the San Francisco public schools for decades, including students with dyslexia, and has painted full time since retiring in 2014. His work, shown in a 2023 Inter-Society Color Council exhibition in Rochester, builds interlocking patterns from spots and strokes of color placed along a drawn, curving line, in the spirit of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic structures and with a long interest in the consciousness of perception. He lives and works in San Francisco's South of Market district. See less