Artist Lecture: Olga Storm at the 20th Street Gallery

Before the lecture, I stood looking at a series of 50 painted tiles arranged in a 7x7 lattice with one black-framed painting to the right. Never before had I been so captivated by a set of paintings.  Their vibrant colors and fluid lines had texture and emotional depth.  The content consisted of various abstract figures that were for the most part one hue with different tints and shades. The figures were either ballerinas or a coupled pair who appeared to have some emotional connection.  It was the figures who in their overlap seemed to be implying an attachment which contrasted by their backgrounds, moved me.  The nondescript backgrounds were of multiple hues also with various tints and shades. Often the background color complimented the color of the figure, but there was raised splatter of gold or neon green paint which gave physical depth and drew attention to aspect's of the body or the figures' connection. These splatters along with brushstrokes and what looked like finger strokes added movement which moved your eye around the piece full of compassion and unity.  

From Olga Storm's lecture I learned that she began painting at the influence of her daughter Melinda Storm after Olga's brother passed away with AIDS.  In order to cope with her brother's death, Olga began to take art classes. At the age of 64, she had never done any artwork before in her life and this lifting of the brush also lifted her spirits.  Ever since then she has found art an emotional outlet painting some still-life, landscape, and figure paintings.  For this gallery show, entitled 50-50, Olga was asked to paint 50 paintings in 50 days.  Her series reflected the grieving process she was undergoing as well as the recent sickness of her husband. The figures were family members, a brother-sister duo as well a wife-husband couple.  Olga was using her artwork to abstractly display her family stresses.  

Knowing this, I went to look at her paintings again and this time I noticed the figures were painted in mostly cool colors while the backgrounds were of warm colors.  The inner calm and connection was evoked as well as the chaos, anger, and instability that surrounded them.  It seemed Olga seemed to be saying their connection was unaffected by the outside world for each figure had her emotional strength which was very apparent in all 50 tiles.