KATHY SNOW STRATTON
www.kathysnowstratton.com
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ARTIST STATEMENT
To be in between is to be betwixt, among, amidst and amid. Interstices the spaces in between brushstrokes interest me. For twenty years as an abstract painter their interactions, spatial visual shifts and illusive meanings have suggested and invited contemplation. I am moved to paint harmonic fields of these charged spaces. In these fields I find associative meanings or rather they find me. Each painting is a unit or part of something larger and unfolds its context in the making. Initially intentional in process these paintings are guided, emotive and intuitive. Through painting I attempt to approach the universal and the unknowable even though I accept it as an impossibility.
With a similar and specific construct of self imposed limitations, each painting is created as one in a series of three. This opens up rather than constricts possibility for me. My painting process is simple. With each series I impose initial rules and start all the canvases the same. The size canvas I will stretch is determined and its orientation. The color ground is selected and the brushstroke is chosen. I simultaneously drip paint on all three works and embrace the feeling of powerlessness and the haphazardness as the drips slowly begin to paint the canvases. I consider the vertical and the horizontal. Each work is then worked individually to completion with applications of calligraphic gestural brushstrokes. Learning to be patient, peaceful and perseverant is vital as I trust my imposed process. Through this method unified layers result forming complex optically charged harmonic fields.
In our otherwise chaotic and random world there is in my view a universal order of truth and light that connects us all. There is something both pure and perfect about this assumption that moves me to paint. Each work reveals a personal assertion of truth and engages me like no other. They transport, test, and surprise me with their realm of possibility and specificity. Associations by the viewer of rose windows, tapestries and architecture may be asserted. For me it is about being in the painting and being on the very edge of knowing. I am pleased these works confront one to see not just look.