Sydney Yeager, Slide, 2006, 72" x 72" (4 panels), oil on canvas It's so easy to lose touch with old friends as we all chug along in our lives. I just got a note from Austin painter Sydney Yeager whom I haven't seen in many years. During the 4 years I lived in Austin, Sydney was a valued friend and colleague, and a real touchstone of intensity and dialogue. Last time I saw her work, she was making big juicy oil paintings that employed various pattern motifs, and repetition of loaded images such as bowls, ropes, torsos. So it's been, I don't know, maybe 15 years, and her recent work is much more complex, and in many ways even more physically engaging. Now the whole painting is the image, and that image consists of endless color/material fragments in a perpetual state of undulation, with grid structures anchoring the ebb and flow. In addition to being a wonderful painter, Sydney teaches in Austin and in Italy, and is an artist of great generosity who's love of painting is infectious and pervasive.
