Gordon Sizelove "Just Passing Through I" Acrylic on Canvas, Abstract Dot Painting in Coral and Blue, Carmel California Art, Statement Artwork, 2024

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Overlapping dots of navy, cobalt, periwinkle, coral red, pink, peach and plum fill the square, the warm colors gathered in … Read more Overlapping dots of navy, cobalt, periwinkle, coral red, pink, peach and plum fill the square, the warm colors gathered in the upper left and the blues pooling toward the lower right, the two zones drifting into one another like weather moving across a sky. The dots are rounded and slightly irregular, crowded so closely that they overlap and mix new tones at the edges. From across a room the effect is a soft gradient of dusk, and up close it breaks into confetti. Sizelove places spots of color along a drawn, curving line until the canvas is full, and the passing quality of the title seems apt: a field of color caught as it moves.

A square of twenty-four inches with a warm and cool balance, suited to the wall above a sofa, a bed, a dining room sideboard or an entry. Coral and blue work with burgundy velvet, white brick, walnut and navy textiles, and it softens a neutral palette. It functions alone as a focal point, or beside a lamp and a stack of books.

Acrylic on Canvas, 24 x 24 x 1 in (61 × 61 × 2.5 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