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Unseeing

words are just messier paint

On the souls dire need for abstraction

On the souls dire need for abstraction

Cat bagel. Potato army. We live in a world where I can literally say any two absurd words together and instantly be bombarded with images of those words. Anything I can think up. It is fascinating, fun, and profoundly tragic. As an artist and a person I think about...

Summer in the studio

Summer in the studio

Summer vacation has always been tricky as an artist. My son is home all day, looking for something to do. The garden occupies absorbent amounts of time, going quickly goes from meek and mild to tawdry and unruly overnight. I throw myself into weeding and cultivating...

When there are no words

When there are no words

Art as language When I first started this blog back in the olden days of January, I was a little nervous. Nervous that I would run out of steam, that I would lack things to talk about, or the worst fear of all – that no one would read or care what I wrote. But I had a...

How to Start a Painting

How to Start a Painting

One of the first questions I get asked when people find out my vocation is some variation of “How do you start a painting? Do you know what you’re going to paint when you start?” Which is an odd question if you think about it. Of course I do. And of course I don’t....

Surrounding Ourselves

Surrounding Ourselves

In my last post I confessed to my fascination with chairs. Writing that post got me thinking about what I surround myself with and why; which in turn got me thinking about what other people surround themselves with and why. And all this thinking led me to a perfectly...

Pull up a chair

Pull up a chair

I recently renovated the attic of my 1885 house into my studio. I evicted the bat squatters, took the entire floor with it’s sloped ceilings and odd angles, and molded it into a sprawling space for creating. An artist studio is a critical indulgence in this vocation –...

On Unseeing

  I remember the first time I read John Berger's Ways of Seeing. I was just starting University and I found an old yellowed copy at the used bookstore nearby. For anyone who doesn't know, Berger's work rose out of a British television series in the 70's of the...

Fall Fun

Fall Fun

Hey RVA, there's lots of great ways to see some of my new work this fall. Current Art Fair, VA's Contemporary Art Fair was this past weekend but no worries if you missed it. Art Style Design Richmond is coming up Nov 9&10 at the Highpoint. And ThinkSmall 10 is the...

Opening this Weekend in Taipei

Opening this Weekend in Taipei

I am so pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition of my work at a delightful new gallery in Taipei, Taiwan. 嘉俬房 & other Art things will open R. Sawan White on Saturday, September 7, 2019. For more information check out the gallery on facebook or...

Back to work

Back to work

It's great to be at work in the new studio at last. I'll get around to posting some pictures of it soon, I'm still feeling out the space. In the meantime here's a new one I quite like. She fell int the story with no words to add, acrylic and pencils on wood, 9"x12"...