Title: Calypso
Artist: Monique Sakellarios
Medium and Materials: Oil on Masonite board
Dimensions: 16" x 20"
Calypso draws the viewer into a luminous, expressive world where color, texture, and movement come together in a richly atmospheric abstraction. Suggesting a dreamlike forest interior, rain-washed coastal clearing, or shifting passage of light through nature, the painting uses layered pastel oils to create a feeling of emotional release, natural harmony, and radiant motion.
Description
In Calypso, impressionist Monique Sakellarios invites the viewer into a luminous world of color, texture, and movement. Painted on a 20" x 16" vertical Masonite panel, this abstract work moves beyond traditional landscape, relying instead on layered pigment, radiant light, and expressive surface detail to create a deeply atmospheric experience.
The painting feels both expansive and intimate, with thin, shimmering oil glazes creating a sense of depth from within. Subtle vertical passages evoke impressions of slender trees, falling rain, or shafts of light moving through a dense natural setting, giving the piece an elegant sense of mystery and motion.
Soft lavenders, rich magentas, and deep plummy violets anchor the composition with a cool, poetic depth. Along the right side and upper edges, brilliant golden ochre, champagne cream, and fiery amber open the surface with warmth and radiance. Crisp turquoise, cobalt, and white accents break through near the lower center, bringing energy, contrast, and visual sparkle. The result is a joyful, luminous abstraction—an elegant contemporary focal piece that can bring color, sophistication, and expressive presence to a room.
Style and Composition
- Artistic style: Abstract Expressionism with elements of contemporary lyrical tonalism.
- Composition: A vertical abstract layout built from overlapping fields of heavy brush texture. High-saturation golds and coppers on the right, balanced by a cooler core of plummy purples and soft lavenders on the left.
- Focal point: The energetic central clearing where white-cream highlights and turquoise accents break through the surrounding purple passages.
- Color palette: Soft lavender, plummy magenta, and rich violet balanced by golden ochre, amber copper, crisp white, cobalt, and bright turquoise.
- Lighting and atmosphere: Reflective pastel pigments layered beside transparent shadow tones create strong internal luminosity and a fresh, dreamlike mood.
Application and Technique
- Brushwork and mark-making: Physical, loose, and varied. Thick vertical dragging suggests rain, trees, or falling light, while broad cross-hatched scumbling creates cloud-like textures. Short impasto ridges preserve the speed and movement of the artist’s hand.
- Layering and depth: Thin translucent color fields create an atmospheric background, while thicker gold and white ridges move forward with a strong tactile presence.
- Tools and materials: Heavy-body oil paint on a rigid, prepared Masonite board, applied with medium flat-bristle brushes and dry-blending mops to soften the misty transitions near the upper corners.
Inventory Status: Available for purchase online or in the gallery.
Shipping / Pickup: Shipping is available, with items securely packaged in professional archival materials, insured, and shipped globally; complimentary local pickup is also available at our 23 North Main Street gallery.
