Albion Arts

Stan Chraminski

Artist Statement – Stan Chraminski

I have spent most of my life creating art. My formal training at Arts High School in Newark, New Jersey, was followed by an Art History concentration at Rutgers - the State University of New Jersey, as well as studio art courses at several colleges and numerous classes at the extension level. Living in Europe for five years gave me the opportunity to visit many museums and see the work of my favorite artists such as Monet and Pisarro at first hand. Since settling in Seattle, I have studied various techniques and media. I am drawn to paint the open spaces in and near my city environment. Lakes, rivers, beaches, and skies entrance me as a contrast to busy city life.

I am often asked why an artist, in this age of many modes of reproduction of scenes of the world around us, chooses to paint landscapes. My answer - I love the challenge of it! Just look at the variety of the earth’s dome around and above us. An artist must carefully select just a single slice of this ever changing reality, then combine the elements of composition, color, line, and texture to create the desired emotional impact. Each stroke is a separate decision of color, size, shape, direction, thickness, and texture which can go well or wrong and it is the sum of these strokes which creates the work. It is this process which continually drives me to pick up my brushes.

To balance the grounding in reality, I also create abstract or non-objective paintings from many sources. I use wax paper on boards for palettes and after a few sessions, I remove these and replace them with a new sheet. I fold and save the old palettes as a reminder of the wonderful colors I mixed and of the painting process. In reviewing my stack of wax paper, I began noticing fantastic colors and shapes. Pretty soon I started using selected sections of these palettes to create abstract work. I generally start out with many colors and shapes, then gradually refine and cover over many until I have distilled the work to its essence.

I also have done what I call swirls. These are free form brush strokes where I start out with lines and then fill in and add colors and lines as the inspiration strikes me. Some are based on small works on paper done in various colors of markers and pencils. I wanted to make something more permanent from these small works so transcribed and interpreted them into acrylic and oil paint. A final motif I’m experimenting with is based on a grid that is then filled in with colors and neutral gray areas.

No matter the type of work, the emotional impact I hope to achieve in the viewer is my main goal. I want the viewer to stand where I stood in front of a landscape, or for the abstracts, just in front of the painting, and feel the same flow of feelings I did. Most often, this impact is a scene of serenity to help us deal with our modern chaos, an island amid the storm. In other works I seek to show the darker side of nature, captured under the artificial lights we live our nights by.

Willem de Kooning once said, "One idea in art is as good as another; execution is all." It is this perfection of execution that I seek.

Stan Chraminski