Statement
Paintings are places and I approach them as such. I sit and turn my back to the external world and enter the world of the painting. I hope a viewer might do that too. When people say “I want to go there” I feel I have hit the mark in some way.
The images in my paintings are of observed and imagined places where one can be in relationship with others and the world and the self. Made in a meticulous way, deliberately arranged, the paintings call attention to a tradition of craft and beauty that highlight, through the making, practices of slowness and care. My use of scale, proportion, pattern and subtly shifting color are visual elements that create a slight perceptual and spatial dislocation.
[My]paintings are places where many kinds of time overlap. Concrete and ephemeral. Phenomenon and mirage. Places at the intersection of time and timelessness.
Gail Spaien
March 2024