JULIE ANN STEVENS

Whatever is left standing—and there is always something left standing when you wrestle angels—is the thing that was
true about your life all along.

Steven Jenkinson

This painting was finalized in 2018 during one of the predictable, and from my perspective, very unwelcome April blizzards on the prairie.

I recall throwing the canvas on the linoleum kitchen floor bathed in icy South streaming light and dumping black and white paint from cans on its surface. Then I raked paint up and down the vertical coordinates in defiance of the horizontal landscape that was having its wicked way with me again.

As the layers of black, white and grey revealed new possibilities, I felt a gradual release of the anguish I was feeling. Magenta and gold and bronze accents were mixed into a sunset over what remained standing after my kitchen wrestling match with angels.