Anna Scholch — Pastel

“Since graduating from the New Hampshire Institute of Art a year ago, my work changed in response to the loss of control I had previously relied on: strict deadlines, that, while often resulting in rushed finishes, did produce large, impressive bodies of work each semester. I thrived off this overachieving, obsessive, negative energy that only felt rewarded upon receiving a perfect grade or positive critique. After college, I struggled at first, because without the pressure and stress, I was no longer high-functioning. Instead, I had to accept that my work now required time, and that only positive energy motivated me. I allowed myself to step away from pieces, sometimes for several months, and alternatively conducted research on artists, opportunities, and my countless ideas for future pieces. For quick gratification between and during big projects, I also completed smaller works to study and experiment, and whose discoveries I incorporated and enhanced in my major unfinished and later works. The pastel medium is like dry finger painting, like sand or dirt that leaves behind a trail of dusty impermanence, which makes it very easy to rub and blend on the paper. I did this with my old pastel pieces; they have a dark, porcelain touch where blemishes and imperfections rarely exist on the shallow surface, yet always glow from behind through the concept and deeper meaning. Now, I am drawn to thick-layered surfaces that burst with the inner beauty of people I portray, that feature symbols and elements of a person’s past, the years between life and death and afterlife, where there is circular movement as is in familial generations, and where death is inviting, sadness is hopeful, and troubles become inessential and forgiven, or the gray mountains of pastel residue on the ground. I do not blend the medium with my fingers anymore, rather manipulate the pastel to build up pigment much like one does with paint. I push and scrape the pastel sticks until the chalk softens and attaches itself to the rough paper, layer upon layer with heavy strokes, like in an impressionist painting. Or I use textures and patterns more commonly associated with ink such as hatching or zig-zag lines. Most recently, I have been testing bright-colored papers with which I proceed opposite to a reductive charcoal drawing, first sculpting the subject of the composition, then erasing observed or imagined shapes in the sheet’s color to let the paper breathe.”