Sanctuaries

A row of geometric, abstract paintings on a wall by artist Joanna White.

The Sanctuary series was begun in 2019, and features a rectangular border of segmented, abstract oil paintings surrounding a blank center. Like the Storyboard series, the imagery suggests landscapes and geological strata, amoebas, sky and celestial forms.

A large rectangular oil painting with a border of colorful, segmented abstract paintings around the edges and a blank center.

Your Gentleness Has Made Me Great
Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches

A geometric oil painting sitting on a rug with a gray cat next to it.

The earlier Sanctuaries were painted on gessoed paper and/or recycled drawings. Here is my cat inspecting Talk to the Elephant in the Room, 22.6 x 30 inches, Oil on paper.

A group of oil paintings on paper, arranged on the wall of a studio, by artist Joanna White.

Some of the border paintings split into smaller, internal courtyards or narrow corridors.

Detail of a segmented oil painting by Joanna White.

The paint is applied both thickly and thinly without brushes. There are white linear gaps and shapes where raw white gesso has been left as a physical absence or barrier between shapes. This is a detail of Waiting for the Light to Sprout, featured below:

Waiting for the Light to Sprout, oil painting on canvas featuring geometric shapes arranged in a border around a blank center, by artist Joanna White.

Waiting for the Light to Sprout
Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches

A geometric oil painting featuring a rectangular border of segmented oil paintings with a blank center, by artist Joanna White.

I also experimented with colored gesso, such as the light blue in this painting I Need to Digest That, Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches.

Detail of I Need to Digest That, a large geometric oil painting by Joanna White.