Sara Noel
| Sara Noel Abstract Expressionist “I paint not the things I see, but the feelings they arouse in me.” Franz Kline “There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breaking through happens.” Helen Frankenthaler “To create one’s own world takes courage…” Georgia O’Keefe Artist Remarks Abstract Expressionism is a pure American art form, emerging in the early 1940’s by a loosely affiliated group of young artists in New York who created a stylistically diverse body of work with radical new directions, which shifted the world’s focus on art. “I have a reverence for painters who are dedicated to realism who show us their personal view of people and places…and I have a passion for Abstract Art. I follow in the footsteps of the painters who portrayed energetic gestures, a cerebral focus on more expansive fields of color – an abstracted mode – The Abstract Expressionist.” Sara enjoys working with larger formats – 90” x 90” canvas – she reveals she is more comfortable with the expansiveness. It allows her to use brushes of all sizes. Other tools include trowels and scrapers. Her sub-straights are stretched canvas, hard board or canvas laminated on hard board. Sara’s mediums are oil, Venetian plaster with water-based pigments. Sara shares, “I start by making a sketch or an outline of my idea. Then I begin filling the canvas with as much bold or primary color as I can. Once satisfied, I apply layers of paint using a completely different color palette making markings through the paint. This is what I call ‘getting lost.’ I do this until I find the feeling or thing I was looking for or something I’m surprised to find.” “…only when he no longer knows what he is doing, does the painter do good things.” Biography Sara Noel shares a common thread with Helen Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner and Joan Mitchell. Like these women abstract expressionist who came before her, Sara Noel is immersed in the art form. While generations separate these artists, Sara found the kindred spirit that binds them - empowering color-drenched expansive compositions. Sara remarks in a recent interview, ”As we move forward in these times of tremendous technological advances, I sense we are going to both need and want connections that have to do with play or expressions of play and spontaneity.” Sara executes the abstract with energetic strokes of intense color, exploring layers of paint using a series of color palettes. The results express directness, mature gestures, and radical movement in expansive compositions – paintings we can get ‘lost in’. Not to leave anyone out, Sara has been influenced by the male counterparts of the American Abstraction Expressionist Movement as well. Willem de Kooning, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly and Franz Kline, all young passionate thinkers who developed their own sense of creating through the irresolute period of World War II. The darkness and uncertainty of the times brought out the strong emotions of these painters fulfilling a desire to shed the archaic forms of cultural expression. When asked to compares the feminine to the masculine, Sara says they are the same, the canvas doesn’t show the gender, it simply illustrates the artist’s freedom of expression. Sara values the very essence of Abstract Expressionism, which to her is spontaneity and improvisation taping into the collective consciousness. She feels painting is an adventure into the unknown. Gerhard Richter was quoted once saying of his life’s work …”the abstract shows my reality.” I feel a connection to these ideas – these quotes from Masters. When I paint, as they painted, I am very aware there is no image to imitate or replicate. It is about the sole business just being in the moment of creating. Sara executes the abstract with energetic strokes of intense color, exploring layers of paint using a series of color palettes. The results express directness, mature gestures, and radical movement in expansive compositions – paintings we can get ‘lost in’. Sara Noel was born and raised in the Bay area of Northern California during an explosive time in American culture. In the 1960’s, Berkeley was an incubator for re-generating the ideology of free speech through artistic manifestation, deepening the commitment to Abstract Expressionism, music, poetry and the arts in general. It is not surprising that her life’s work is creating art. Formal Background San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco, California California College of Arts and Crafts Oakland, California University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado Colorado Women’s College Denver, Colorado |
