Color Cue: Artist's Statement

Laurinda Stockwell

Stills

Pigment on rag paper 13” x 19” 

Color can be saturated or subtle. Generally, my use of color is subtle, using neutrals with a pop of accent color or using a limited palette of saturated, intense color. I think about the Munsell Color chart when I’m selecting a palette of color. Emphasis is upon a 3D chart, with neutrals in the center and full saturation on the extremities. That bright accent color really comes alive against a field of neutrals. 

“Memory and history permeate the austere imagery of Laurinda Stockwell. Stockwell’s works are evocations of time. Her works record the natural world to create visual interpretations of the temporal world. A photographer who works with assemblage, she collects feathers, branches and natural history illustrations, juxtaposing the natural image with the second-hand, to make still-life photographs and assemblages with a subtle poignancy. Stockwell looks for significant objects, just as others search for significant form. She sees these assemblages as landscapes. 

There is no clearly understood narrative in Stockwell’s works. The analogies which she draws among objects within a piece are evocative and associative-not at all literal. In these assemblages, she has honed her vocabulary into a significant language that is once nostalgic and historical, yet very contemporary. The works suggest the spiritual and the precious yet look as if made with little deliberate labor. Stockwell achieves succinct poetic form in these works.” 

Alison Weld 
New Jersey State Museum