Awash in color and geometric patterns, Blandine Saint-Oyant’s This Is It, now at Gallery 825 in West Hollywood, combines a mix of spray painted lines, riveting colors, and varied gemoetric shapes both cut out and drawn. Her vibrant geometry sings, just as her pallette resonates with chromatic intensity.
Saint-Oyant says she uses a painting process that she’s developed over a period of the last 15-20 years to create this visually galvanizing work. “I pour liquid oil paint on a painted background on canvas or paper. When I pour different batches of colored paint and rotate the canvas back and forth, the pigments intermingle into visually striking patterns and shapes.”
It’s an alchemic process that allows for a fusion of the planned and the experimental..”Things happen when the colors mix and shapes form,” she relates, calling her work often improvisational. “I like the fluid and organic result.”
However, her work in This is It is a progression from her past work and processes. She considers it to be a transitional show that includes her large titular painting, which stands at an impressive 58″ by 70″, a series of paintings that are 38″ x 38″ called “Ecclectics,” and two smaller framed collages that she titles “Misfits.”
All of this work is an outgrowth of what she terms a “gloomy two year period” during the pandemic. “This is It” was set to be her last painting ever, she explaints. “This painting was a first for me in all aspects, technically and conceptually. It was the first time that I included painted letters and used so many straight lines and gradations of colors. It was a difficult piece that took me several months to complete. But this long process gave me with the time to think about the next phase.”
Despite her decision to be done with painting, after completing the ambitious “This is It,” she found she had a strong urgency to create new work. “I began working on a series of collages. My intention was not to restrict myself to one single technique or range of colors but to explore and juxtapose them as freely and unconventionally as possible, in a completely eclectic manner,” she says.
With this in mind, she combined “geometric and organic shapes, cut out and drawn lines, gradations of colors, and the use of spray paint to provide a strong new element. I call the collage series ‘The Misfits,’ and two are in this show. ”
These images, shown above, are precise and fluid, the textures popping out of their vivid backgrounds, creating an astonishingly tactile and meaningful 3-D effect. There is a liquidity to both works, as if a splash or drops of water were caught in time and added to the layered collage.
Her work with collage led her to create her newest body of work, her series “The Ecclectics,” below, which she developed using planned geometric shapes that she juxtaposes to one another. This pre-planning differentiates her work in this exhibition from previous projects. “What makes these paintings different from my other work is the addition of free-floating spray-painted lines, patterned geometric shapes, and an adventurous color range that I have not used before,” she attests.
Each of these works once again exhibits a rich texturality that captures movement both in line and through color gradations. The paintings are like watching the shifting contours and colors of a sunset sky, but instad of those colors changing due to the passage of time, they shift from engaging in deeper contemplation of the works, which manifest light and shadow in varied strands to create a sense of luminosity and depth.
Saint-Oyant continues to work with oils, drawn to the range of color and the infinite subtleties of color that oil offers her. She describes the medium as providing her with a “greater range” of color and texture than acrylic or other mediums.
Despite having once considered putting painted work aside, she finds that painting today is “still an exciting and innovative medium that has a lot to offer. I want my work to make people curious and inquisitive,” she says. “Painting is an adventurous endeavor that I will always pursue. For me it is a way to answer existential questions, to fully express myself in a completely personal and independent way. I am currently working on a series that I call ‘Les Sauvages’, which is more gestural and expressionist. “
The exhibition is on view at LAAA’s Gallery 825, located at 825 N. La Cienega in West Hollywood, through October 18th.
Along with Saint-Oyant’s lush work, also on view are three other solo exhibitions: Lousine Hogtanian’s Inside Out; Lori Markman’s Magical Landscapes; and Laura Van Duren’s Revelers.
- Genie Davis; images provided by the artist