Artist’s Statement

The world excites me and I want to express how I feel about it. I love to paint in cities. The shapes of buildings and the shapes of light and shadow in them interest me. I also love to watch people, so I paint them going about their daily routines. I exaggerate color and shapes in order to simplify what I see and to express this simplicity to the viewers of my paintings. I try to say one thing at a time and help the viewer appreciate that one thing. Even when I am painting in the countryside, I extend lines formed by roads, afternoon shadows, reflections, or interesting groups of trees. I let these shapes help define the painting. For the last few years, I have been trying to simplify my work with new approaches. I have been making my realistic paintings more contemporary, sometimes more abstract, by paring down design elements, tight cropping, unusual angles, flattened forms, highlighted color, and sharp-edged contour lines that penetrate and permeate the painting.

I visit museums and galleries regularly. The figures of Henri Toulouse-Loutrec, John Sloan, Alex Katz, and Pablo Picasso excite me. The works of Wayne Thiebaud and Fairfield Porter help me to look at the world from new angles, and Henri Matisse’s designs of shapes and patterns help me organize my canvasses.

Sandra’s Inspiration

Sandra travels extensively and is observant of the world around her. She is most interested in people - their families, their cultures, their clothing, their homes, their communities, and whatever surrounds them that affects their daily activities. These things stimulate her and appear often in her work.  Her travels have taken her and her paints to Central America, southern Mexico, Europe, Australia, Africa, Canada, and, of course, the USA.