Sophia Croasdale

My work consists of large-scale acrylic paintings of vibrant colors, gradients, and frenzied patterns. These elements work both together and against each other, creating a rhythm of balance punctured by chaos. My paintings reference digital spaces, their perfection, and quickness, but these references are subverted on closer inspection of my surfaces. All elements are meticulously hand painted, while still containing slight imperfections due to human fallibility. Shapes and lines begin to wobble, fall out of alignment, and shiver against each other. The nature of the hand-made object asserts itself through these imperfections, pushing against assumptions of mechanical construction. 

When creating a new piece, I combine narrative with my interest in restricted spaces, rules, organization and contained order to plan compositions that are nearly impossible for me to make. I use narrative as a base to make certain formal decisions to ground my pieces both visually and emotionally. These paintings begin to become a repetition of well-executed passages and moments of failing. These flaws begin to take on a life of their own, becoming unplanned improvised mutations of patterns in meticulously constructed spaces.