NORA STURGES

Levitation

SEPTEMBER 26 - NOVEMBER 2, 2019

C. Grimaldis Gallery is pleased to present Levitation, an exhibition of recent small-scale paintings by Baltimore-based artist Nora Sturges. Working in oil paint, gouache, and egg tempera, Sturges surpasses reality to enter a world of abstracted landscapes of color and form. Levitation is her second solo exhibition at C. Grimaldis Gallery.

Sturges’ recent works are inspired by the mystery and humanity of late medieval Italian frescoes. Her paintings merge a mystifying spatial context with solid forms to create a pathway into abstraction. Sturges builds her own worlds riddled with beautiful imperfections and clarity through layers of paint. By combining the holy and the earthly, the medieval and the present day, she attempts to understand and build upon this history from a post- abstraction viewing context.

By showcasing paintings no larger than 10 inches wide, Levitation, highlights Sturges’ ability to generate an intimacy with the viewer. Her approach to abstraction provides hints to a world that is foreign at first glance, but becomes more structured as you move from piece to piece. It is this disjointed familiarity unified by color that brings these small works to life.

Sturges has received numerous awards and recognitions, including four Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council and four publications in New American Paintings. She was granted the Juror’s Award from the McLean Project for the Arts in 2011, and was named Best in Show from the Bethesda Painting Awards in 2010. Sturges has held recent solo exhibitions at David Lusk Gallery (Nashville, TN), Mount St. Mary’s University (Emmitsburg, MD), Stevenson University (Stevenson, MD), and Bachelier Cardonsky Gallery (Kent, CT). Sturges is currently a Professor of Painting and Drawing at Towson University (Towson, MD).