Gordon Sizelove "Around Here Ii" Pastel on Paper, Abstract Looping Petal Drawing in Magenta Pink, Bay Area California Art, 18 X 18 Inches, 2023

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Overlapping loops of magenta, fuchsia, violet and maroon curl across the square in thick, blocky bands, folding into one another … Read more Overlapping loops of magenta, fuchsia, violet and maroon curl across the square in thick, blocky bands, folding into one another like rose petals or an opening peony. The darker maroon strokes pull between the brighter ones like shadow between petals, and the pastel is laid heavily enough that each shape holds a clear edge. The palette is rich and a little theatrical, and the curving forms create the sense of a bloom opening in slow motion. Sizelove begins each work with a curved, flowing pencil line and builds color along it, and the rounded, overlapping forms here show how far a single line can travel.

Bold but rounded, it brings drama to a bedroom, a dressing area, a dining room or a lounge. Magenta and violet look rich against charcoal walls, plum or emerald velvet, brass and dark wood, and they add warmth to pale gray rooms. At eighteen inches square it suits a single wall or a pair above a bench or console.

Pastel on Paper, 18 x 18 x 0.5 in (45.7 × 45.7 × 1.3 cm). Unframed.

Sizelove's pastel works begin the way his paintings do, with a curved, flowing line that sets the movement of the sheet. Color is then built up along that line in short strokes and rounded dabs of pastel, each slightly different from its neighbor, until the whole surface is covered. The chalky pigment sits on the grain of the paper, and where marks overlap they blend into new tones. The work is on paper and unframed.

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