Sydney Licht: Getting Warmer: 179 10th Avenue

Of her recent work, Licht states, "Color in its quantity and specificity can affect how we perceive things as either developed illusions or simple shapes. In this new body of work, familiar objects like books or vases are pared-down to their silhouettes in order to explore a limited range of warm and cool color relationships. For example, a box of note cards might be distilled into an orange rectangle or the spine of a book might just be a sliver of icy cool green. In another work, a woman’s purse has been simplified into big slabs of warm beiges and hot pinks. I strive to create lush and varied surfaces in my paintings by using a palette knife loaded with copious amounts of paint. Depending on the particulars of each composition, the color of the space between objects can simultaneously define those elements but also defy their very definition by stubbornly popping out at the viewer instead of receeding into space. More than ever, I am interested in how the color of empty space can influence the humble items being portrayed on a two-dimensional surface. Consistent throughout is my goal is to push the limits of what a still life can be by questioning the boundaries between abstraction and figuration."