#InTheStudio with Joan Mitchell Fellow Margaret Curtis: “My work is about power, which is a very broad term. I'm really interested in how power relationships on the interpersonal level correspond to power dynamics within the larger societal framework. “Most of the imagery in my paintings is the product of long periods of reflection—of sketching, dragging sketches and folders of found imagery into and out of photoshop, printing that, drawing on the print, and feeding that back into photoshop... I take sketchbooks with me everywhere. They're journals of drawings, responses, text. Prolonged meditations, in a way. “Color wise, I've always worked with this interplay between translucent passages of color and areas of opacity. I build luminosity that way... My father was a gemologist and he had a windowsill in his office covered in test tubes of opals suspended in liquid. Holding and turning something as geologically complex and full of fire and light as those mineral specimens was wonderous to me. I think that had a huge effect on what I want from the physical aspect of my work. I want the paintings to have a body, a somatic reality, a sense of time in how they are physically built and perceived. “My brush work is pretty simple and hamfisted. There's not a lot of blending or mystifying technique. I’m more interested in how loose marks start to layer and lock together and build into something more specific. It’s engrossing—embedding subject matter and abstract content in this physical substance... There’s a lot of anxious problem solving to fit it all together. That’s the fun and maddening part, where an artist is on her toes. It’s deeply challenging and satisfying.” Follow the link in our bio to read the full interview with Margaret Curtis (@margarcur). Image 1: Margaret Curtis in her studio Image 2: Margaret Curtis, The Ice Sculpture, 2019. Oil, pencil, watercolor, spray paint on panel, 48 x 60 in. Image 3: Margaret Curtis, The Falconer (detail), 2020. Oil on panel, 60 x 48 in. Image 4: Margaret Curtis, Pink Stripe, 2021. Oil on panel, 48 x 72 in. Image 5: Margaret Curtis, Sun Sets on the Shitkicker, 2022. Oil on panel, 60 x 60 in.