George Preston | Sandrafelzen

Sanperfel's (Sandra Felzen's signature) work has been greatly influenced by the Symbolist tradition, the work of Gustave Klimt in particular. Previous to 1988 the stamp of this influence was very heavy in her work.
In SEPARATIONS the weight of this influence is much less noticeable. The decorative devices of the Symbolists are gone and the broad structural aspects of the style remain, translated into more contemporary terms. The artist's point of departure in this painting is some trees in a forest.
Klimt's use of ornamental forms in place of organic ones such as leaves and flowers is replaced by a disolving of the ornamental circles and crosses characteristic of his work into a diaphinous pattern of transparencies which evoke our memory of the layers of leaves, twigs and filtered light of the forest. The vibrational back-and-forth play between this evocative image and a more neutral, more abstract one is repeated in the tension between the bars of burnt siena and the filamental background.

George Preston

New York, 1989