S A N D Y O S T R A U
S A N D Y O S T R A U
“I take scenes of e ver yday life — pe ople, places and activities — and re duce them to their f undamental elements.”
“I strip away the superfluous detail and minutiae of the moment in order to present each scenario in its essence. At a certain point, specific content is not that important or e ven rele vant, but rather what appears to be g oing on, creating situations that can be obser ved or contemplated in more universal ways. is sense of ambig uit y or vag ueness allows for a rang e of interpretations and assumptions, for viewers to perhaps add their own content, emotions or undercurrents, overlaying what the y think is happening with their own explanations. To heig hten their eng ag ement, I use texture to create a sense of dimensionalit y, a perception of three dimensions in two, thereby inviting viewers to " step into" each composition as if the y were actually there, and to participate in their own narratives.
“Many of my painting s invoke feeling s of solitude or e ven loneliness. e fig ures appear connected but oen seem to be looking away from one another, absorbed in their own lives and stories, perhaps occasionally connecting , perhaps not, like strang ers in the same scene. At other times, fig ures seem to be waiting for someone to arrive or for an activit y to beg in, anticipating a meeting or a reunion for instance. Whate ver the circumstances, there's always an outcome awaiting discover y.
“ e ways I express feeling s of solitude or disconnectedness in my open-ended plot lines are based on my own introspective moments as well as on assumptions about the subjects in my compositions. With my e ver-present sketchbook, I obser ve alone, recording actions and interactions at a distance, working with whate ver I can see, taking what little information is available and imag ining the rest. So much is unclear, uncertain and not possible to obser ve. Blending in the setting s the trees, water, and other surrounding s I translate my obser vations into painting s, which in turn become the stories, stories we can either share with one another or ponder in our own unique and personal ways.
“ e Northern California Coast has always been an important inspiration for my work . With plans to spend more time up there working , I ’ ve leased a beautiful studio space on e Sea R anch. e surrounding coast g eog raphy will undoubtedly continue to influence my work . ”
~ Sandy Ostrau
a g ust of trio opens opera like breaches in the white of scrambling , swiveling , corroding roofs, scattering the valuables that terza rima saw like ellipses, casement window crows caw along the ocean yard g arg oyles placing six feet to steady ourselves in standing entering this painting , a private awe
whose period lies on the seaside straw, whose hearse of sleep, lonely, rolling shepherd's g eometr y is turning silent law to a caug ht, unaffected dreamtime flaw at the top of the rig ht hand sky like herds of what the ang el saw and absent birds.
The Fates
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 60" $15,000
as opposed to north, the wind rattles white projecting the immensit y of clean statuesque royalt y, of standing lean like a kitchen in the middle of lig ht where nig ht diseng ag es from a day ’ s slig ht improvement caug ht in fore ver ’ s sheen in bet ween the dreamline and the so mean meaning happens upon here with her quite sense of quiet approval she just mig ht stand us all up as well as we become hers simply by looking and staying brig ht as the dull enoug h lig ht proposes tig ht re venues and broad g rays where all of some whispers back soliloquies that still numb.
South Beach
Oil on canvas (framed) 48" x 60" $14,000 Inquire
Sea and
Beach Path
the color bloods the tang ential e vers of re verencing tethers of g od wing s and flying re velations hear our sing s, our de votional psalmodies and wheres of abstraction where e ven our whispers and painted loud enoug hs of dissembling s disassociated in the blinking s, that overlook justice and her murmurs
here, equivalent ambient g od stirs are varied remembrances of cool illusion at its ver y best and purrs of illuminates e vering occurs to purif y and cleanse amends, to fool all offing s justified, staying duel.
Crimson Overlook
Oil on panel (framed) 38" x 38" $7,000 Inquire
embrace me ling ering s of horizon, we ’ ve been here before in the before long a cusp of blue indig os that belong each other ’ s ag os like nurser y rhymes on holding time, embracing coloring g one to the faraways that we stand around song the rig htf ulness of here that’s ne ver wrong to sing fearlessly music of the dawn
the offing of the lig ht on horizon the meandering of stayed purposing the fearless excavation of the sun the wars that lost ourselves that we both won that both of our duets that almost bring us back to the ver y first of sing ing .
In Concer t with Sea
the paling , scaling water sounding was partial to a blue return of line sound rhyme bound to these intrepid echoed round corners the edg es which cannot be cause but put forth ne vertheless in how does the vernacular seem to take word bound hypothesis biofields of round meaning conscious as if it really buzz
while the screamers sang some blue f uzz of a pond like dream like sense of water in the flat touches of a just because, in the remembering of she draws with color with canvas underneath her shared sense of repurposing such whisper.
she sing s the merriments melancholy yellows as if g raveside underneaths sun spoil into a beautif ul her one g limpse she shares with us as one g racef ully towards the cause of disturbs she saw such sea in with her dream lines making shapes beg un before such time as the water air won such wonderf uls in g racef ul dives now done
a bunt of mag ical, a bit of f un a bouqueted orang e-sense of how yellows bloom across time in the rhyming of some none of it in tremendous tries to open the nig ht in how poise and g ood manners stun viewers with arabesque into the room, opened like treasures of a g old filled tomb.
Oil on canvas (framed) 36" x 36" $6,500
here the skying , sig hing lovers conspire eternit y ’ s long calming , staying tall, praying prayed increments of time in all g lor y, praise, and honor, a bluing lyre of t wo ang els with their wordless choir of t wo beautif uls in standing such small impudent reasoning s of psalming ’ s call of t wo wing less bits of heavening fire
what had their blueing to blue with desire, these t wo impoverished bits of lovely that e ven the g ods will come admire these standing souls to perchance fly hig her to reason ’ s rearing perspicuit y, perhaps it’s really only you and me ?
Between Stillness and Sky
Oil on canvas (framed) 48" x 48" $11,000 Inquire
To come
Terrel D ene Hale is the author of the beautif ul sonnets featured throug hout our catalog . We are deeply g ratef ul for his contribution.
Terrel Dene Hale was born in Blackfoot, Idaho, and g rew up in Yuba Cit y in northern California . He ser ved a t wo -year f ull-time mission for his church in southeast Australia . He received his underg raduate deg ree in International Relations from Brig ham Young Universit y and completed a master ’ s in L ibrar y and information Science at San Jose State Universit y.
While working at e Hoover Institution’s
African/Middle East Collection at Stanford Universit y he published an article on French cultural colonialism in Seneg al from the viewpoint of Cartesianism. He also published some of his sonnets in Peter Gizzi’s o.blēk and edited and published t wo volumes of his lang uag e poetr y journal, Screens and Tasted Parallels, upon the advice of his mentor, Diane Middlebrook in the Eng lish Department.
Moving to the other side of the countr y, he worked at the African/Middle East Collection of the Law L ibrar y of Cong ress. While there he published the prose poem Saints and Latin Decadence and a leg al bibliog raphy, United States Sanctions and South Africa . He subsequently worked at a non-profit think tank , e Economic Polic y Institute as Director of L ibrar y and Information Ser vices.
Hale ran his first marathon at ag e 42, the Marine Corps Marathon. Training for his second Marine Corps Marathon he g ot his first massag e and decided to g o e Potomac Massag e Training Institute to study and certif y as a practicing massag e therapist with a focus on runners. He went to the 2004 Olympics in Athens as a volunteer massag e therapist. His interest in an integ rative mind body medicine approach with runners led him to enter Saybrook Universit y ’ s PhD prog ram in Mind Body Medicine Practice.
In 2017, while in his PhD prog ram, Hale became aware of a torn posterior tibialis tendon on his le ankle while performing plyometrics at a track workout.
Subsequent surg er y and post-surg er y rehabilitations led to a loss of his athletic identit y. is, in turn led to his interest of researching the material for his dissertation and publishing this book . He received his doctorate in 2020 during COVID.
Hale and his wife, Ag nes, live in Rockville, Mar yland. e y have three children and four g randchildren. He swims, li weig hts and runs, and meditates to experience the possibilities of mind, body, spirit integ ration with deep g ratitude.
