Gordon Sizelove "The Instant I" Acrylic on Canvas, Large Abstract Twin Whorl Painting in Navy Blue, Bay Area California Art, Statement Artwork, 2023

Details

Description

Two great whorls of navy, ultramarine, lemon yellow and cream spiral across the canvas, one low at the left and … Read more Two great whorls of navy, ultramarine, lemon yellow and cream spiral across the canvas, one low at the left and one high at the right, their long, feathered strokes sweeping toward the centers like water draining or galaxies turning. Yellow and cream flicker between the blues like light on a wave, and the strokes lengthen and shorten with the sweep of each curve. The marks are slender and closely packed, so that from a distance the blue reads as a single deep color, then breaks into stripes as you step closer. Sizelove draws each line first and lays his color along it, and the result holds a moment of motion perfectly still.

At forty inches wide, it is made for a living room sofa wall, a bed, a dining room or a large entry. Blue and yellow pair with navy velvet, white walls, light oak, brass and linen, and it brings lively movement to modern or traditional rooms. In a home office or a stairwell it provides a strong focal point, and it holds its own beside tall plants, lamps or shelves.

Acrylic on Canvas, 40 x 25 x 1.5 in (101.6 × 63.5 × 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