Blandine Saint-Oyant

My work explores the relationship between various dichotomies – formality and random play, structure and spontaneity, control and fluidity, calmness and exuberance.  I regard these as fundamental formal issues in contemporary abstract painting, and they provide a framework for personal expression. I have developed a process that employs diverse methods of mark-making and juxtaposes different combinations of color and surface quality. Paint is brushed on, spread, and poured, with both glossy and matt surfaces, fluid and solid media. My aim is to create a space in which contrasting visual elements are interwoven into a complex and fluid composition. Each work begins with a background built up out of solid colors, sectioned by sharp-edged bands of thick paint, which suggest the remnants of a grid. While this phase is planned and controlled, the second is spontaneous and involves risk. I pour a layer of liquid paint onto the canvas, producing puddles and web-like formations, allowing shapes to form and colors to interpenetrate. Inescapably process remains important — pouring and holding back, guiding without controlling.

In many of the paintings, the colors are excessive and provocative, and the picture plane is divided by a transparent glaze that creates a rupture in the composition. The thin outline enclosing many of the pours is an ornamentation that adds a layer of complexity and self-consciousness. Initially the color choice, division in the composition, and the outlines were purely intuitive actions. But on reflection, they resolve many of the aesthetic dichotomies in my work, while leaving intact the pleasure in the application of the materials that I want to convey to the viewer.

CV

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2010	Brilliant Paintings & Amazing Ceramics, Sylvia White Gallery, Ventura, CA Pasadena Art Alliance Biannual Show and Auction, Pasadena, CA Brewery Artwalk, Telemachus Studio, Los Angeles, CA
2009	Off the Wall, Armory Center for the Arts Biennial Art Auction, Pasadena, CA
2008	Juried Show, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA Telemachus Studio, The Brewery, Los Angeles, CA Pasadena Art Alliance Biannual Show and Auction, Pasadena CA
2007	Group Show, LA Artcore, Los Angeles, CA (July 2007) Off the Wall, Armory Center for the Arts Biennial Art Auction, Pasadena, CA
2006	Fullerton College Group Show, Fullerton College Gallery, Fullerton, CA Painting's Edge 2006 Exhibition, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA Painting's Edge, Parks Exhibition Center, IdyllwildARTS, Idyllwild, CA Pasadena Art Alliance Biannual Show and Auction, Pasadena CA
2005	Group Show, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Wallworks, LA Artcore, Los Angeles, CA Painting's Edge 2005 Exhibition, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA Painting's Edge, Parks Exhibition Center, IdyllwildARTS, Idyllwild, CA
2003	Open Haus, Haus Gallery, Pasadena, CA Painting's Edge, Parks Exhibition Center, IdyllwildARTS, Idyllwild, CA
2002	All Media Group Show, Beckstrand Gallery, Palos Verdes Art Center, Palos Verdes, CA Painting's Edge, Parks Exhibition Center, IdyllwildARTS, Idyllwild, CA
2001	Side Order, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA
2000	Light Show, Peppers Art Gallery, University of Redlands, Redlands, CA
1998	Gallery 825 1998 Open, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA
1997	Group Show, Pasadena Art Space, Pasadena, CA
1994	Group Exhibition for Recipients of SAF/NEA Award, Southeast Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC (Catalogue)
1993	3rd Annual New Show, Wake Visual Art Association, Raleigh, NC Group Show, 1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA The Artist's Show, City Gallery of Contemporary Art, Raleigh, NC Group Show, Orange County Women's Center, Chapel Hill, NC
1990	Group Show, CCA Competitive Exhibition, Kinston, NC
1989	Staff Art Show, Grossman Gallery, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2010	LA Artcore, Los Angeles, CA
1994	"Blandine Saint-Oyant: New Paintings," Durham Art Guild, Durham, NC
1994	"The Ploughman," Louise G. Brown Gallery, Bryan Center, Duke University, Durham, NC
1993	"Gestures of Ritual and Work," Hanes Art Center Gallery, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
1992	"Pillars and Fragments," Louise G. Brown Gallery, Bryan Center, Duke University, Durham, NC
PUBLICATIONS
Studio Visit, (Open Studio Press, Winter 2009, Spring 2010)
AWARDS
1994	Southern Arts Federation/National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship
RESIDENCIES
2002, 2003 2005, 2006	Painting's Edge, IdyllwildARTS, Idyllwild, CA
EDUCATION
1997-1998	Studied Visual Art & Art Pedagogy at University of Paris I /Sorbonne, France
1986-1989	BFA and Diploma in Painting, School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University, Boston, MA
1983-1985	Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL Studies: Art history, Painting, Drawing, Sculpture, Performance Art