Our story begins with a square. The Long Island Museum charged its artists members to create on one square foot for its 2015/2016 exhibition, One Square Foot.

Oh I did not like being told what to do! Can you relate? But after much grumping and stalling I fell in love… temporarily… with painting on squares. I found expansion as my answer to the limitations of painting on a small angular surface.

Well it turned out to be a happy obsession, enough so that I declared for a while, “SQUARE, I AM”! Working only on squares.

© 2015 Alicia R Peterson. Shades of Change. Acrylic on 18 x 18-inch panel. Framed dimensions 19.5 x 19.5 inches. And happy me to share wall space with my talented colleagues at a show at the Art League of Long Island in 2017.Photographer: Peter Scheer. Inquire about this work – Alicia@aliciarpeterson.com

Are You Square?

A limited number of squares are available for purchase, to be exact, 4. The remaining squares were sold, recently donated to Stony Brook Medicine’s Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, or were destroyed during my fire adventures of 2018.

Reach out to me at alicia@aliciarpeterson.com to bring the expansion of the square to your home or office.

Then by happenstance in 2016 as I was pursuing my canvas options on squares, I saw ovals and circles. I was curious and ordered a few. Oh, did this shape call to me in a way I can’t put into words. It was an intuitive call to paint on this form. And, yay me! for listening to my inner wisdom.

This was a profound direction change for me as an abstract artist. In fact, this may be one of my “defining moments” as a painter.

© 2018 Alicia R Peterson, Yellow Reveal. Acrylic on 16 x 12-inch canvas. Photographer: Peter Scheer.  Inquire about this work – Alicia@aliciarpeterson.com

I started on circles and ovals with traditional edges. I consider Yellow Reveal one of my best on this type of canvas. In fact, my mentor Stan Brodsky exclaimed when it was viewed at the dreaded critique easel in his Advanced Seminar in painting class, “You have mastered this size, you must move on to another size or form to challenge yourself.”

And YES, I did! Convex edges were my next jump off the cliff of abstract painting.

Image: © Alicia R Peterson, Galactic Oceans. Acrylic on 36-inch diameter convex circle. Photographer: Peter Scheer.  Inquire about this work – Alicia@aliciarpeterson.com

I am just introducing this painting. It was my first large convex circle and took six months to complete. Oh, it was a glorious struggle. Galactic Oceans will be on display at a group exhibition at the Jeanie Tengelsen Gallery, Art League of Long Island, Dix Hills, NY. The show will run April 13–April 28, 2019. Stay tuned for more information.

Three years later the tondo and ovato tondo continue to call to me like a siren. In fact, recently one early morning as I entered my studio, I declared I would never paint on a rectangle or square form again!

© 2017 Alicia R Peterson, Fire Circle. Acrylic on 20-inch diameter convex circle. Photographer: Peter Scheer.  Inquire about this work – Alicia@aliciarpeterson.com
Fire Circle was my first convex circle creation and, no, it was not done after my fire adventures.

Yes, there are more circle journeys but that is for another story.