Dorothy Osterman Paintings

Excerpts from Speaking of Art by Gloria Russell

"Osterman, whose work is in the George Walter Vincent Smith Museum, makes abstract paintings in rich and glowing colors.  That glow is a key to these paintings, for the radiance of the hues, their interaction, and the fluid application produce auras of lights."

"Osterman has been interested in light for along time.  In an earlier painting, "Interiors", a luminescent zone of light hues painted in a wispy veil of strokes hovers beside large forms composed of deep earth tones and then, as if compressed into knife-edge brilliance by those heavy shapes, diminishes into a sharp, thin line, a streak of light dividing the picture."

"That penetrating edge marks most of Osterman's paintings. Deriving primarily from her interest in plant forms, in the space and composition determining the arc of stems and branches, or even the purity of the drawn line itself, the linear streaks of light in the paintings act, in a formal way, to further enliven the juxtaposed and vibrant hues and with them to build the compositions.  But most of all, that radiant line and the sensuous hues generate energy, a charge that springs from the subconscious of the artist, that constitutes something of a self-portrait."