November 18, 2024

              Stephanie Crawford (b. 1942) is an artist-musician with Michigan roots working out of California; born in Detroit, she graduated with a BFA from Wayne State University before relocating to New York to study at the Pratt Institute of the Arts. Crawford is a “rare bird: a black trans vocal musician in the exceedingly straight jazz world,”[1] and her visual work seems to reflect similarly. Driven by gesture and an improvisational quality recalling jazz performance, she has said of her typical medium: “You can't control it—you can try, but watercolor does what it wants,”[2] and in recent years, Crawford has revisited memory as a central theme and inspiration in her work.

              Skyline #2 embodies this gestural and liquid experience, as the viewer is confronted by pools of red, teal, blue, and yellow that bleed into each other with varying opacity. In some ways, the beige color block at lower-left center is the most striking in its internal brushwork and form, as well as its contrast with the surrounding colors; there is a noticeable blue-green droplet in its upper right corner, which acts as an anchor from which the viewer’s eye wanders radially around the rest of the sheet. Skyline #2 is also marked by a decisive horizontality versus verticality—perhaps to urban architectural effect, which is suggested by the title itself—as its forms seem to interlock at right angles in a patchwork of color. The work is framed from the right by parallel purple and yellow strips, and below by a light teal strip patterned with splashes of dark teal, almost suggesting a city sidewalk. While the burgundy form in the upper right appears most geometrically experimental, the red form entering from the upper left corner appears almost figurative, with its squared head, flexed arm, and waist-like bend. The variegated composition is undergirded by visible graphite markings, supplying evidence of the watercolors’ connections to—yet relative independence from—the artist’s intention and gesture, striking an intriguing balance between control and chaos.

              Crawford’s work as both jazz musician and visual artist has taken her all over the world; from New York, she moved to Paris in 1989 and then Oakland in 1997, where she has remained (teaching, performing, painting) since. She won the Django d’Or for Best International Jazz Vocalist in 1993 and has been included in numerous group shows throughout her painting career, including the inaugural queer international art biennial in Detroit this past year.[3] Recently, she has also presented several solo exhibitions at Gordon Robichaux in New York and Rebecca Camacho Presents in San Francisco.[4]

 

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