By Ray Rogers
“Come look at my morning glories,” says Sally Egbert, thrilled each day over nature’s recurring gift growing on vines in her backyard in East Hampton. She’s especially fond of flowers, as the vibrant watercolor collages inside her painting studio attest: Fresh takes on blooms pop off the saturated colors in her works. “I love lines, skinny lines. These are based on flowers, like the stems and then the explosion of a flower,” she says, pointing to the richly colored works lining the studio’s tables.
Over the course of several months, Egbert invited Purist into her home studio to witness her art-making in process, including the transformation of three massive blank canvases into deeply textured works of art. “I start by pouring paint, then scrape away and add more. I’ll do that several times. That’s how the works get such depth,” she says, surrounded by dozens of crinkled-up tubes of oil paint and a rainbow of color splotches everywhere. “Then I put more on top: branches, twigs, the sky, flowers.”
The effect is arresting. Looking at one of her paintings, you might feel like you’re 20,000 leagues beneath the sea, on the ocean floor watching undulating life forms—or deep in her psyche or subconscious. There’s a place of quiet contemplation, as if time has stood still and you can observe the fluidity around you. But there’s also tension, with joyous bursts of color next to more ominous, dark spots. “Yeah, that’s me, take a beautiful color and put something heavy next to it,” she acknowledges. “Then it’s dynamic and emotional, in a good way,” says the Bay Shore-born artist, who splits her time between the East End and Manhattan, where she paints at the EFA Studios.
As if right on cue, Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” comes on while she contemplates the dichotomies in her works, which read as explorations of magic and loss, a celebration of life’s fragile and fleeting treasures: “The longer we live, the more experiences we have. Which is great! I’ll be fine when I die. Who cares?” she says, laughing heartily. “This summer I had all of these things break: Now the computer doesn’t work, now the car doesn’t work, and now I just have to get rid of my phone. Paring down has actually been wonderful. And painting, for me, is paring down—it’s back to having something in front of you and making your mark on it, with your hands.”
These pieces will appear in a two-person show, Halcyon Days, at Tripoli Gallery with the artist Esther Ruiz, who works with neon light and sculpture. “We both love color. It’s going to look like a party in there!” Egbert’s palette is both vivid and dramatic. “It’s all about color for me. I put colors that work well together and then sometimes almost clash. That’s intentional, so that there’s some sense of excitement.” And tension. “Yes,” she agrees. “Look at these two larger works: One’s floaty and dreamy, and the orange one on the floor is a bit more tough. Isn’t that what life is? It’s dreamy and then kind of tough. They’re just diaries. I roll out of bed, and I walk about 15 feet over and I work. It’s been wonderful this summer living right with my paintings.
“There’s a freedom in making my work,” she continues. “When you make work for long enough, it’s like your shadow—it’s right behind you, right by your side. It’s not even an extension of you, it’s you.”
As the interview ends, Egbert marches out of her studio with a stack of old papers that, she confides, has been haunting her for a decade, tossing them in a fire pit for kindling. Among them, the title to her bright red Volvo (RIP). It feels like a ceremonial purging. She clinks a glass of rosé, as the fiery orange embers float to the heavens above.
Halcyon Days at Tripoli Gallery in Wainscott from October 5 to November 4. sallyegbert.com; tripoligallery.com