Jace Stern

March 2020, walking the near empty streets of Philadelphia, I passed the shuttered stores and masked people, and wondered if going from my apartment to my studio could be considered an essential activity. I felt like a thief, stealing this escape from isolation and grim reportings of the disease to paint. My first paintings were of fear and entrapment as isolation became the new reality.

After a couple of months settling in to this new normal, I embraced the gift of time with only my inner voice as a guide.

From being an oil painter, I decided to explore acrylic on unprimed canvas, building stretchers that reflected my height, I adapted a technique I discovered from Ed Clark, using a push broom and bucket as my tools. These gave me a freedom of movement, and transported me to the outside world as detail gave way to color, artificial light to sunshine. I found myself tapping into the internalized beauty of the past 20 years I spent in Switzerland where 2020 quarantine would not let me go.