Audrey Stone

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA

Artist statement

When observing shifting color and light in nature, I find myself paradoxically experiencing both excitement and calm. I seek to bring that dynamic opposition into my work. To create images that are simultaneously stimulating and serene, I employ subtle gradients of color in bands of varied widths. The color shifts become a sensory experience: I feel them in my body as vibrations. As I create the gradients, I’m always thinking of visual pacing and rhythm: one color builds until it reaches the point where it feels fulfilled and another color is ready to be introduced. Although the pacing of the gradients requires measurement and mapping, I also make more intuitive choices as I work, turning every painting into a dance of the planned and unplanned. That dance extends to the composition of my diptychs and multi-panel paintings. I often employ symmetry and reflection both within and between panels, but the finished works lend themselves to multiple compositional arrangements, some planned and others entirely unanticipated. Allowing for this element of chance is part of my ongoing internal dialogue about the concepts of control and expectation, both in my work and beyond.

Artwork