"In my recent work, I am inspired by medieval paintings as visionary tools and pathways to abstraction. I’m especially drawn to late medieval Italian frescoes, to their imperfections and the connection to humanity they give me. I find the process of viewing these paintings exciting. Right away unambiguous details spring to life—a pointing finger, the shoulder joint of some armor—while the spatial context remains mysterious. As I spend time with the work, that context quickly becomes understandable and meaningful, but it’s that first moment of confusion, of simultaneous clarity and mystery that I most love. My work attempts to understand and build upon that perceptual moment.
Viewing these medieval paintings, I feel time collapsing. I connect to the human subject matter of the scene depicted, to the artist whose artistic choices are so alive, and to my contemporary, post-abstraction viewing context. I see worlds coming together — the holy and the earthly, the medieval and the present day, the abstract and the descriptive. The imperfection of these works, after hundreds of years of wear and tear, opens them up. As a twenty-first century viewer, I find them thrilling experiences of abstraction.
I start by transcribing aspects of my source painting to my surface, trying to draw out what seems strange or magical to me. Each work then undergoes a long process of improvisation and refinement as I discover a vision and solve formal issues. Along the way, memories of other things I’ve seen, in art and life, come into play, and the painting moves away from its medieval source. In the end, I want to have created an image or a world that I’ve never seen before."
--Nora Sturges