Gordon Sizelove "Sunscream I" Acrylic on Canvas, Large Abstract Sweeping Stroke Painting in Yellow, Bay Area California Art, Statement Artwork, 2023

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Flowing strokes of lemon yellow, gold, cyan blue, black and leaf green sweep across the canvas in broad curves, like … Read more Flowing strokes of lemon yellow, gold, cyan blue, black and leaf green sweep across the canvas in broad curves, like wind running through tall grass or flames leaning in one direction. Near the right, the currents meet in a diagonal seam where the strokes cross and interlock. The strokes are fine and closely packed, so that from across a room the yellow glows like sunlight, then separates into blue and black stripes as you step closer. Sizelove begins with a curved, flowing line and sets each mark along it, and at this scale the line becomes a river of color. The title joins sun and scream, and the canvas has that charge.

At forty inches wide, it brings a wall of sunlight to a living room, a dining room, a kitchen or a home office. Yellow and blue sit well with navy, leather, light oak, white walls and brass, and they lift gray rooms. Above a sofa or a long console it makes a strong focal point, and it pairs well with black metal frames, plants and warm wood.

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