Renée Stramel

Celestial Seas

24 x 36", framed to 34 x 48 x 1.5"

Watercolor on Paper

$2000

Celestial Seas started out as a gestural color study investigating a specific application technique. As I worked, I felt that a more concrete focal point was needed to give it a grander sense of scale. The result is an ethereal scene in between the material and immaterial worlds.

Artist's Statement:

My work is an exploration of my inner life and emotional landscape, pursued through meditation, repetition, and an ongoing investigation of materials. Working across acrylic painting, digital design, and hand-cut collage, I catalog and accumulate my thoughts through repeated iterations of shape and color—a process of mark-making that becomes almost meditative in itself.

This process of sifting and distilling is calming to me, even when the resulting colors or forms might suggest something more turbulent. Through repetition and abstraction, I find a kind of emotional control: a way of working through feeling until what remains is quieter, clearer, more settled.

Cobalt blue recurs throughout my work as a kind of anchor—a symbol of grounded energy, often the first color a viewer encounters. Around and through it, my own visual vocabulary takes shape, built from accumulated marks and forms that carry personal meaning.

Ultimately, I hope this work conveys a sense of hope and joy, offering viewers a point of connection with the image itself—a connection that, for me, was already made in the process of creating it.