Lesley Anne Spowart "Chroma" Mixed Media and Acrylic on Paper, Framed Abstract in White and Color, Carmel California Art, Statement Artwork, 2023

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A loose cluster of pebble-like shapes drifts down a thick white ground, each ringed in smudged black line and filled … Read more A loose cluster of pebble-like shapes drifts down a thick white ground, each ringed in smudged black line and filled with its own color: tangerine, lemon, emerald, rose, deep maroon and midnight navy. Scribbles in yellow, red, green and black loop across several of them, like handwriting laid over paint. The white around them is heavily worked, scraped and dragged, with faint drips and ghostly marks showing beneath. Spowart is a colorist who prefers paper for the resistance it offers, and the saturated notes read all the more strongly against the chalky field, which gives the title its meaning.

Light, graphic and generous at nearly three feet tall, it brings color to a room without darkening it. Hang it above a sofa, a bed or a sideboard in a white or pale-toned space, where the shapes echo ceramics, flowers and colorful textiles. The white ground works well with light oak and plaster, and the saturated notes pair with cobalt, mustard and terracotta accents. The light wood frame keeps the look airy.

Mixed media and acrylic on paper, 23 x 34 x 1.5 in (58.4 x 86.4 x 3.8 cm). Framed in light wood.

Lesley Anne Spowart builds mixed media surfaces from acrylic, paper and drawn or scratched marks, laying down color and then sanding, scraping and mark making until the layers push through one another. She welcomes the resistance of the support, and her wider practice includes printmaking, photographic xerography, beeswax and tar. She works in a Monterey studio housed in a retired wine cellar.

Lesley Anne Spowart grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and earned a B.A. in Art History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, before graduate study at UC Davis, UC Riverside and Cal State Fullerton, where she studied museum practice and exhibition design. As a student she helped install works by artists including Sol LeWitt, Beatrice Wood and Viola Frey. She lives in Monterey, California, where she and her husband raised three children.

A self-described colorist, she works in beeswax, tar, photographic xerography, acrylic and collage, painting abstractions, landscapes and animals in a studio set in a retired wine cellar. She has exhibited widely on the Monterey Peninsula and nationally, including at the Monterey Museum of Art, and her work is held in collections including Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula and Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital. She was voted Best Local Artist by the Monterey County Weekly in 2010. See less