Sylvia Van Nooten is an asemic artist and visual poet but once she was a writer of fiction. Way back in the late nineties she wrote a novel and it almost made it. Jonathan Franzen’s agent read it and expressed interest, she sent some ideas for a rewrite. But that novel-- titled Brain Music--which today sits in a cardboard box in Sylvia’s basement, got her started doing art because of writer’s block. Writer’s block, particularly for writer’s of fiction-without-a-strong-plot, heavy on the beautiful sentences, light on structure---well it’s exhausting. Sylvia took time away from her novel to start playing with oil paints and pastels. Eventually the writer’s block became permanent but the art continues, twenty plus years later.
Without all the words and no need for strong plotting, art expresses (to be banal), whatever needs to be expressed. In this painting, done on November 3rd, 2020, is titled American Dissonance. The tension of that night had to be expressed.
The next painting is about striving to find strength during these ever so difficult times and was completed several days after the election. It’s titled, Finding Source. The viewer is free to interpret the art anyway they feel. Once Sylvia births a painting it is on its own, out in the world.
As an art columnist for GAS, Sylvia will be interviewing many of the artists she knows from social media. They have all inspired her and encouraged her to carry on and they all have fascinating stories to tell about art and process and life.
See more of Sylvia's work in GAS 9.
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