Gordon Sizelove "Seismic Shift" Acrylic on Canvas, Large Abstract Pointillist Painting in Lavender, Bay Area California Art, Statement Artwork, 2021

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Thousands of tiny petal-shaped strokes in pale lavender, peach, sky blue, periwinkle and white cover the canvas, grouped into small … Read more Thousands of tiny petal-shaped strokes in pale lavender, peach, sky blue, periwinkle and white cover the canvas, grouped into small swirling eddies that drift across its width. The palette is airy, with the colors blending at a distance into a pearly haze and separating up close into confetti. The strokes change direction gently from one eddy to the next, creating subtle fault lines where the movement shifts. Sizelove varies each form on purpose for a natural look, and the overall effect is a shimmering surface that suggests something seen through a microscope, like cells in motion. The title hints at tremors, but the mood here is calm, almost weightless.

Light in tone and wide in format, it suits bedrooms, living rooms, dining areas and entries where a soft color is wanted. Lavender and peach pair with cream bouclé, whitewashed oak, rattan and pale gray, and they warm modern rooms without darkening them. At forty inches wide it works above a sofa or a headboard, and it holds its own beside books, ceramics and a floor lamp.

Acrylic on Canvas, 40 x 25 x 2 in (101.6 × 63.5 × 5.1 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