Sandi Whetzel, Artist
Artist Statement

A seductive flirtation with captivating shapes and vibrant color sparks my passion for designing contemporary paintings in acrylics. My art embraces the nuances in forms, color and patterns drawn from the plant world. This fascination with engaging designs in nature energizes me and motivates me to create. I’m seduced into doing preliminary thumbnail sketches where I can manipulate and enhance the intriguing contours of the shapes. Part of the seduction is discovering how to integrate the shapes that entice me into a more aesthetic design. The decision of where to crop the images makes them become intimate with the edges of the canvas; creating interesting spaces surrounding the forms and intensifying the design. I play with their placement until I’ve arranged them into a pleasing pattern of energy and rhythm that showcases their distinctive characteristics.

My excitement builds as I brush the design on canvas, anticipating how exquisitely the shapes can be embellished with luscious color, sculptural brushstrokes and unique textures. I savor the freedom and the challenge of going beyond merely reproducing images; to paint them as I choose to visualize them. I hope to achieve an animated, sensuous or playful quality with the graceful shapes that are a recurrent theme in my work. When things are going well, the brush strokes express confidence, flourish; a sculptural, carved quality; softness or energy; whatever is needed to convey the character and emotional energy of the forms. I become one with the brush and the paint pigment as I trace the leaves, petals, stems, trunks or other objects to reveal their growth patterns or structure on canvas. The placement of compelling shapes, vibrant chromas, directional brushstrokes and tactile textures pulls viewers through the paintings, saturating them with the emotions the shapes and colors convey. I consider my work to be most successful when people express how my paintings make them feel.

I love the versatility, quick changeability and texturing mediums of acrylics, particularly because of the experimental nature of my work. I like to extend the paintings around the gallery-wrapped edges of the canvases; adding to the third dimensional quality of the works. The paintings stand on their own without a frame to “finish” or detract from them.

Allowing myself to work within the confines of an imposed theme as I have done with my wine series paintings, has been a productive stimulus to conceive works illustrating those themes; ideas for paintings that would not occur otherwise. Inventing paintings from my imagination is somewhat like birthing a child. The creation is a part of me. It is mine but distinct from myself. However, it will always be a reflection of me. I hope people will be inspired by the celebration and interplay of shapes, patterns and colors in my art, as I am.