"Strong Assumption" by Sandra Perlow

"Strong Assumption"
By Sandra Perlow
Dimensional Collage: sugar-lift intaglio with relief printed and hand colored elements on Rives BFK
19.5x22''
Limited Edition of 4
Published by Hoofprint Workshop in 2012
Printed by Gabe Hoare

About the artist:
The new paintings and drawings of Sandra Perlow are a deliberate evolution of her active interest in abstraction and pictorial space. Over the last several years, her works have evolved from flat arrangements of color and shape to pictorial membranes, which create a push and pull of figure and ground relationships. Perlow states her paintings and drawings reflect an affinity with surfaces, which have accumulated layers of history, moss covered ruins of Mexico, architecture of Angkor Wat, remnants of movie posters on abandoned buildings or the worn surfaces of Italian frescoes. Perlow’s organic forms and wallpaper motifs are concealed and revealed through veils of color as decorative surfaces are echoed in painterly patterns and improvisatory mark-making.

Perlow’s creative process is an energetic shuffling and sorting of memory, text, sound and image. There is spontaneity in her studio practice as the surrounding loop sets up a syncopated tempo as she works on several canvases at one time. The cacophony of visual signs are also found in the layers of images on her studio table: a landscape of books and papers form a visual library from Chinese brush painting Rotella’s decollates or the works of Philip Guston. The creative impulse is immediate and improvisational as Perlow pulls paper, motif and gesture onto the surface of the picture plane.

This connected series of collage on canvas and works on paper is inspired by infusing woodcuts into the work. The wood cuts are incorporated as a drawing tool ,using the woodcut area in combination with oilstick and acrylic.