Scott Sandell Original work of Art

Media: Collage; handmade papers, paint, inks.

Ref: Q97.9 (These are Scott Sandells references written in Chalk or Pencil to reverse)

Year (not stated but 1992/3)

Size approx: 6 x 27 inches

Printed on handmade papers using the highest quality archival inks. The colors are absolutely vibrant! The digital images you see here do not do them justice. Should you decide to acquire one or more of these pieces we guarantee that you will be more than pleased.

Although the tools and techniques of printmaking are used in the creation of Scott Sandell's work, these pieces have more in common with paintings than prints. Each work is an original collage, built from panels Sandell prints on an etching press in his New York studio. Many layers of highly pigmented lithographic inks provide a lush, painterly surface, with fragments of colors and shapes from previous layers providing clues to the visual history of each panel.

The handmade papers that Sandell selects are often the sources for his creative ideas. He seeks out these materials from the exotic Japanese and Nepal cultures because of both their various textural effects and ink absorbing qualities. The peculiar irregularities and unfinished characteristics of such types of papers as Okawara, Unyru, Marrikko, Suzuki, Chiri, Sechishu, Mulberry and Buhtan (a kind of paper made from sugar cane in the Nepal mountains) have a freshness that appeals to the often spontaneous manner in which Sandell prefers to work. A Sandell print might pass through as many as thirty-odd steps before the artist releases it from his Plum Island Studio. Traditional woodblock, intaglio and lithographic methods are joined with a more advanced photographic transfer procedure. The surfaces are enriched by imposed linear or gestural configurations spontaneously conceived. Consequently, each piece is unique unto itself.

Although monumental in scale and striking in color intensity and contrast; china blue, scarlet, creamy yellow, oranges and pinks, Sandell's prints are arrestingly intimate and contemplative. Sandell has courageously pushed the spatial field of printmaking into the expansive nature of our times.

Sandell received a BFA from the University of Minnesota during the tenure of Zigmunds Priede, a master printer at Universal Limited Art Editions in West Islip, New York. During the early seventies the printmaking department at Minnesota had tremendous energy, eventually launching the professional careers of many artists and master printers. It was this concentration in prints and works on paper that shaped Sandell's mature work.

Sandell's work can be found in the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, the U.S. State Department in Havana, Cuba, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Chrysler Museum, Harvard University, Emory University, and many prestigious corporate collections around the world. Site specific works include projects for the Ritz Carleton Hotel in Doha, Qatar, the Mito Plaza in Tokyo, Caesar's Palace, and the Main Hotel in Johannesburg.