Out of the Blue III

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Out of the Blue III is a lithograph on paper by Sandra Wimer, artist and Senior Lecturer in the Visual Arts Department at Union College.

Wimer was born in San Antonio, Texas and spent time growing up in South Dakota, Kansas, and Oklahoma before moving to New York. For Wimer, “spending most of [her] life in the plains states provided an experience of living with a sky that is cinematic”; an influence and motif that can be seen throughout Wimer’s printmaking career and in this work in particular.1 

Out of the Blue III has an ethereal and soft feel, showing what a blue sky might look like if you were laying on your back on a warm, summer day. 

But upon a closer look, the fine cursive text overlaying the print becomes just visible. The words vary in color, subtly matching the gradients in the background and giving the letters an almost translucent and dissolving effect. 

What words or phrases can you decipher? How do you react to the text and its qualities?

The words feel just out of reach, which in me, creates an interesting dissonance. I find it hard to sit with both the calm, blue sky and this imperceptibility of the words, and while I yearn for the sky’s familiarity, I feel slightly uneasy. 

Wimer speaks to this effect in her work, sharing that her goal “is for the images to be universal – like the sky -- but open-ended and suggestive enough that other concepts can evolve for each viewer."2

What memories or emotions does this work evoke for you? 
 

 - Mallory Schultz, Art Collections & Exhibitions Fellow 2019 - 2020

[1]  Mandeville Gallery, Art Inspires Art, (Schenectady, NY: Art Inspires Art Exhibition Catalogue, 2012). 
[2] Ibid.

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