Sandra Speidel

MEDIUM: Oil Paint | Mixed Media Art
SPECIALTY: ✔ Critiques

I am always searching for the poetry, the unique juxtaposition, the totally genuine impulse that is not explainable.

I have been drawing and painting figures all my life. As a child, I drew the comings and goings of everyday life in my family. This early propensity and my love of the written word permeate my paintings. I love the turn of phrase, the condensing of emotion into poetry, the allusion to this or that subject as symbol. My figures live in that space between reality and poetry.

I am a lifelong learner, trained in literature and art. I have spent countless enjoyable hours drawing from life, and have taught figure drawing and painting at the university level for over 35 years.

I combine my figures with abstract elements to suggest thought or emotion, psychology, or history beyond the literal depiction of the figure. The flattening of space, addition of marks and symbols, and omission of other elements are all reminders that this is not an attempt to copy reality, but my response to what I see and feel. This response is what I want to communicate.

The figure’s gesture is my entry point into interpreting and understanding. I look for the weight and subtle shifts of posture and curve.

I break up the figure by making abstract marks with a variety of brushes, knives, scrapers, squeegees, trowels, and other hardware finds. Along the way, I celebrate the surprises, how the marks add to or subtract from the image in both representational and abstract ways.

Studying the figure and revisioning it in these ways helps me tell its story—and my story. And hopefully I am providing a doorway for viewers to enter the work with their own histories and find their own stories.