S A N D Y O S T R A U
I take scenes of ever yday life — people, places and activities — and reduce them to their fundamental elements.
I strip away the super fluous detail and minutiae of the moment in order to present each scenario in its essence. At a cer tain point, specific content is not that impor tant or even relevant, but rather what appears to be going on, creating situations that can be obser ved or contemplated in more universal ways. This sense of ambiguity or vagueness allows for a range of interpretations and assumptions, for viewers to perhaps add their own content, emotions or undercurrents, overlaying what they think is happening with their own explanations. To heighten their engagement, I use texture to create a sense of dimensionality, a perception of three dimensions in two, thereby inviting viewers to "step into" each composition as if they were actually there, and to par ticipate in their own narratives.
Many of my paintings invoke feelings of solitude or even loneliness. The figures appear connected but often seem to be looking away from one another, absorbed in their own lives and stories, perhaps occasionally connecting, perhaps not, like strangers in the same scene. At other times, figures seem to be waiting for someone to arrive or for an activity to begin, anticipating a meeting or a reunion for instance. Whatever the circumstances, there's always an outcome awaiting discover y.
The ways I express feelings 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 ever-present sketchbook, I obser ve alone, recording actions and interactions at a distance, working with whatever I can see, taking what little information is available and imagining the rest. So much is unclear, uncer tain and not possible to obser ve. Blending in the settings the trees, water, and other surroundings — I translate my obser vations into paintings, which in turn become the stories, stories we can either share with one another or ponder in our own unique and personal ways.
The Nor thern California Coast has always been an impor tant inspiration for my work. With plans to spend more time up there working, I’ve leased a beautiful studio space on The Sea Ranch. The surrounding coast geography will undoubtedly continue to influence my work.
~ Sandy Ostrau
Har monic Meadow
Oil on canvas (framed) 40" x 40" $7,500 Inquire
Inter nal Landscape
Oil on canvas (framed) 36" x 36" $6,500 Inquire
Ocean Life
Oil on panel (framed) 30" x 40" $4,000 Inquire
Orchestrating the Path
Oil on canvas (framed) 36" x 48" $8,000 Inquire
Wildfire Hike
Oil on canvas (framed) 48" x 36" $8,000 Inquire
sky and stillness’ between
here the skying, sighing lovers conspire eternity’s long calming, staying tall, praying prayed increments of time in all glory, praise, and honor, a bluing lyre of two angels with their wordless choir of two beautifuls in standing such small impudent reasonings of psalming’s call of two wingless bits of heavening fire
what had their blueing to blue with desire, these two impoverished bits of lovely that even the gods will come admire these standing souls to perchance fly higher to reason’s rearing perspicuity, perhaps it’s really only you and me?
Terrel Hale
Between Stillness and Sky
Oil on canvas (framed) 48" x 48" $ 6,500 Inquire
the color bloods the tangential evers of reverencing tethers of god wings and flying revelations hear our sings, our devotional psalmodies and wheres of abstraction where even our whispers and painted loud enoughs of dissemblings disassociated in the blinkings, that overlook justice and her murmurs here, equivalent ambient god stirs are varied remembrances of cool illusion at its very best and purrs of illuminates evering occurs to purify and cleanse amends, to fool all offings justified, staying duel.
Crimson Overlook
Oil on canvas (framed) 38" x 38" $6,500 Inquire overlooking crimson for @sandy.ostrau
Bluf f Reach Meet
Oil on canvas (framed) 24" x 36" $4,500 Inquire
Natural Seaside
Oil on canvas (framed) 24" x 36" $4,500 Inquire
Lakeside Trail
Oil on panel (framed) 18" x 24" $3,600 Inquire
Sur veying
Oil on canvas (framed) 30" x 30" $4,800 Inquire
Por tent
Oil on panel (framed) 24" x 24" $4,000 Inquire
Golden Tallgrasses
Oil on panel (framed) 12" x 12" $2,800 Inquire
Heading Out
Oil on panel (framed) 12" x 12" $2,800 Inquire
Nature’s Stage
on panel (framed)
Oil
12" x 12" $2,800 Inquire
Oil on panel (framed) 24" x 24" $4,000 Inquire
Winter Sur f Duo
Oil on panel (framed) 24" x 24" $4,000 Inquire
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000 Inquire
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Grace
Oil on canvas (framed) 36" x 36" $00,000
embrace me lingerings of horizon, we’ve been here before in the before long a cusp of blue indigos that belong each other’s agos like nursery rhymes on holding time, embracing coloring gone to the faraways that we stand around song the rightfulness of here that’s never wrong to sing fearlessly music of the dawn
the offing of the light 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 very first of singing.
Concer t by the Sea
Oil on canvas (framed) 36" x 48" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Obser vation Pier
Oil on canvas (framed) 34" x 34" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Seaside Oasis
Oil on canvas (framed) 48" x 60" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Swell
Oil on canvas (framed) 36" x 36" $16,000`
The Fates
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 60" $16,000 illumination vulgare
a gust 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 gargoyles 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 geometry is turning silent law to a caught, unaffected dreamtime flaw at the top of the right hand sky like herds of what the angel saw and absent birds.
Terrel Hale
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
Shared Vision
Oil on canvas (framed) 60" x 72" $16,000
