January 2024 - 500 word

     

     It is remarkable to me that a stroke or line of color can evoke illusion, carry meaning.

My painting is largely focused on how it is that an image is made…, how the sense of space, light, mood, the illusion of an image manifests, becomes clear enough to ponder, to make sense of.


     Abstraction has allowed me to express complex experiences. It is difficult to sort out just one idea from all within myself. Somehow, each idea seems to be attached to others, at times by the finest filaments. They are difficult to untangle, to see one idea alone and unassociated. These filaments seem hardwired, welded to one another even though, in the most delicate manner.


     Painted images emerge from the buildup of colored strokes and lines; whether they are thick or thin, curved or straight, opaque or transparent, next to one another or layered; in essence, in relation to one another.


     The buildup and relationship of lines and strokes is at the base of my work, whether it be in the paintings I make or my drawings. Ultimately, an image clear enough to ponder emerges, as I stay with the particular piece till it reaches cognition and recognition, abstract as it may be.


     For painted or drawn surfaces to reach cognition or recognition, requires a viewer to bring with them their own culture, life experience and personality. I ask a viewer to tease out their own understanding of these paintings and drawings. Then conversation can ensue, the vying of ideas, the wresting of ‘what’s it all about’ for each individual viewer.


     The double grid paintings are where I express my most complex experiences and ideas. The two distinct sides vie for attention, each side being complete within itself. Consideration of the relation of the two sides is central. Other paintings tend to be smaller, more intimate, generally single image fields where a more singular color and mood coincide. There are also larger paintings unhinged from the grid.


     My projects include works called ‘Strokes’ that use either oil paint or ink on paper. These works are made up of a series of strokes built one layer directly over another.

     ‘Lucky Strokes’ are made up of numerous layers, leaving a single stroke to consider.

     ‘luce fluids’ are books of up to twenty pages, where a series of strokes using the same colors and order of strokes are applied over many pages, each page dancing differently among others in its book.


     In drawing, the process of building up strokes crosses over from painting. The fine point and solidity of a pencil evokes articulation, the results being different from fluid paint. I usually start with what I call ‘scribbling.’ Slowly pulling an image from the mass of lines, which manifest in both figurative and non-figurative works. A story may emerge.

December 2023 - 100 word

   Elinor Dei Tos Pironti’s oil on canvas, double grid paintings are built by layering pigmented transparent stroke sets, at times up to twenty layers, to such a degree that the strokes, even though still present, dissipate in the viewer’s mind transformed into the manifestation of a larger image. The viewer is then able to bring their own personal and cultural self to consider, interpret, understand these paintings.

     This is not much different from how letters of the alphabet via grammar and syntax, build to form words and sentences, which likewise are transformed in the reader’s mind as idea, image, story.

October 2023 - 100 word

 Paintings: 

   These grid-like paintings are composed of oil on canvas. The paint is applied in thin overlapping vertical and horizontal bands. The viewer's eye moves across the loosely incremented surface of color and light, section by section and through the delicate, at times bold, layers of transparent pigment. There is no clear visual path. One is confronted with both the physical sensation of paint and an allusive quality of image. A subtle play is present between the actual and illusory, between control and impulse. There is a simultaneous, systematic structure within the painting, coupled with an intuitive paint application. Given time, one can move to personally known experiences.


Drawings:

     I do not have an idea that I am 'depicting'. The drawings usually begin with a scribble, a linear mass of strokes on the page. Slowly, forms with cultural meaning appear.
August 2022 - 100 word

     My work focuses on relationship between parts, neither part overpowering the other, working together to create a whole.  Contrast of color, texture, scale of brush stroke, opaqueness, transparency all play a part in a simple laying down of roughly horizontal and vertical color filled strokes.

     Within these parameters, a sense of light, time, place, experience and emotion can emerge. There is not a directive of correct interpretation, the canvas presents a visual field for the viewer to engage with, moving toward a known memory.

     These paintings are meant to be quietly contemplated, as one vacillates between sides.

January 2022 - 200 word

     Painting is a medium suited to visual sumptuousness or generosity. Through the use of color and illusion, paint becomes something other than what it is, it becomes what the paint looks like.

     The what the paint looks like is my primary concern. In order to investigate this quality, I have employed a network of horizontally and vertically layered strokes of transparent paint. The physicality of the paint is seen directly.

     The network of strokes is loosely applied, kept within the relative confines of a grid. This grid-like structure affects how we orient ourselves in space. The slightest break from plum or level is noticed, leaving us offset, unstable, distorting the flatness of the canvas. The transparency of the paint produces an illusion of depth. The various colors fight for prominence one over the other, unanchored and disconnected to any point in the picture plane. There is an uncertainty as to what is hidden and what is revealed. The rectangular points in the grid become resting places, opening into tiny light-filled landscapes. We are left with relying on a viewing interaction between our internal self and the external cultural world, on the concrete and our intangible experiences.

November 2003 - 100 word

     Elinor Dei Tos Pironti attended NYC public schools K through 12 before going on to receive her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from Vermont College.

     Her artwork, which spans over 25 years, combines painting, drawing and printmaking, and the making of miscellaneous objects of many materials.


     The work’s style has ranged from figurative to abstract. Its content deals with human relationships and the comings and goings of life in both its physical (the presence and preciseness of light, or lack thereof, effects perception or mood) and experiential manifestations (the current tangible verses the memory kept within ourselves of what’s gone by).

December 1996 - 100 word

     These paintings do not present the viewer with an easily identifiable image. One is cast into a surface of color, light and space, where the eye moves along the incremented surface, section by section, with no clear visual path delineated.

     An interaction begins, between viewer and painting, a kind of personal and cultural dialogue, facilitating a conversation with both immediate sensation and with the question of how is this a painting?

     The paintings are composed of oil on canvas. Many transparent layers of pigment tinted oil are applied in overlapping vertical and horizontal bands, making possible a subtle play between the actual and illusory, between control and impulse.