Tim Saternow
Watercolor painter Tim Saternow explores the old buildings and houses of New York’s Greenwich Village and the streets of Provincetown, Massachusetts, as he pays tribute to the silent histories of these homes and of the lives and loves that have lived within. As he explains, these houses have stories to tell.
Saternow wants to capture the beauty of the old before it is all “improved” out of existence, and knowing that they could disappear at any moment. Trained as a set designer in theater and film, he has used his design sensibilities to make environments to tell stories of the characters. Not only is it important to “set the scene,” but his designs help
to tell about the emotional lives of the individuals themselves.
Saternow paints large architectural landscape watercolors with a thick use of watercolor paint, playing with the tension between the illusions of depth, carefully drawn linear perspective, and an obvious play on the surface of the paper through watermarks, paint runs, blooms and spatters.
The artist is particularly sensitive to the emotive power of light, especially the distinct light of fall and winter creating deep shadows while playing across the faces of the old brick townhouses in New York and the clapboard of Cape Cod. Says Saternow, “I paint a moment with light and shadow, and a calmness begins.”
Through December 31, his work will be on view in the exhibit House Portrait/City Portrait at Kobalt Gallery in Provincetown.