Sydell Lewis
From Palo Alto Wiki
Sydell Lewis is a dancer-turned-painter and an admirer of op art works that inspire darting eyes and unusual perspectives.
Lewis often uses rotating works to encourage viewers to look again and again. In an artist's statement, she once wrote, "My intention is to create energetic surfaces that keep the eye and mind in an active elated state." [1]
One of Lewis' major influences is Picasso, from whom she said she learned that "You don't have to paint exactly what you see; you paint the essence of what you see."[1]
Besides being an avid ballroom dancer, Lewis is als oa trained chemist who worked in biomedical research for many years. She studied art, too, but became a scientist for fear that she wouldn't make a living with art.
By 1992, she was ready to give up science to try her hand as a full-time artist. At that point, she was already married and could afford to quit her job in science and pick up one in art.
Lewis has been showing and selling her art ever since. A Sunnyvale resident, she's been a member of Gallery House since 2000 and has seen her work in many Bay Area venues, including Stanford Art Spaces, San Francisco City Hall and the Triton Museum in Santa Clara.
The rotating paintings grew out of a series of striped abstract paintings she was working on about two years ago. She began turning the canvases upside down while painting, as she commonly did, and then became inspired to set them on their sides as well.
A carpenter friend helped her build manual rotation devices that were so simple she now constructs them herself. Since then, she has also used some automated devices.
