About The Artist

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Originally from San Diego, Ted Stanuga moved to Chicago from Montana in 1973 to attend The School of the Art Institute Chicago. Stanuga’s abstract paintings are gestural in nature, and rooted in discipline and practice - a result of focused experimentation.  Various shades of the same colors are painted, sanded, and painted again, adding depth to the visual narrative. Often working in large-scale, the enveloping size of Stanuga’s pieces create intimacy in his works.

 

Stanuga has shown at the Brooklyn Art Museum Print Biennial, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Dart Gallery, Karen Lennox Gallery, and Lanon Cole in Chicago.

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Artist's Statement

Mine is a gestural abstraction based in nature and ultimately in the nature of things. I am concerned how painting them attains meaning culturally in a life-long practice. Marcuse explained once that organization dissipates the energy created by spontaneous radicalism, and for me this holds true especially in my practice where I turn to the spontaneous at every road block and depend completely on the resulting energy to carry me to the next exploration. The larger works often are as much about walking across them and experiencing the surface while passing in front as it is to focus on any given area. Creating these marks requires a practice, a repetition of the movement required to make the line, not unlike dance. Consequently the size of the canvas is determined always by the limits of my reach while standing flat on the floor. The enveloping size creates intimacy. This process leads me to find something that moves me because it extends my understanding of what painting is first, and also reveals something significant about myself. Then hopefully, without killing it, what is left is the minimum of what is needed in the work to challenge and grow with the viewer. In this will be the new beauty and cultural relevance I can find in a life-long practice.