Serene Wise, a painter, studied art and design
at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and
the University of Michigan. She is a graduate
of the University of Wisconsin, Madison (B.A.),
the University of Chicago (M.A.) and the University
of Michigan (M.U.P., Taubman College of Architecture
and Urban Planning).

artist statement
I am a painter, a minimalist. I am endlessly fascinated by the power and eloquence of lines. My paintings are, indeed, line studies — studies in the geometry of visual rhythms. The paintings are designed in series (e.g. blue/white; clouds; monochrome; summer; topographs; gray/grey; topology/2007; French ultramarine in winter) and each series becomes a self-generating exploration of a defined visual rhythm. My recent work explores spatial relationships of lines against color fields; several series evoke natural phenomena — seasons, seascapes, cloud formations — as visual rhythms or questions of geometry. Each series expands from the first statement of one visual rhythm by manipulating its geometry.

Each painting or flat panel is a construction of canvas and masonite bonded with gesso and sealed with oil. The schemes of my recent series are deliberately simple — minimal — painted lines on color fields. This simplicity invites changes in rhythm in every direction and creates complexity. I am using either horizontal or vertical lines over the color fields. I use translucent and opaque textures for contrasts — the brushed line, the sanded line, a light wash of line. My objective is to attract light and create depth. As I vary the dimensions of lines and intervals between lines, new spatial relationships develop. These relationships change again depending on which color field receives which overlay or underlay of lines.

My work is influenced by a long line of minimalist practitioners from Josef Albers to Daniel Buren. The excitement is in making a statement and then exploring its consequences. The simple turns to complex.