Sterling Wells (born in New York, NY, and based in Los Angeles) takes an unconventional approach to plein air painting, immersing himself in the neglected urban waterways of Los Angeles to make lush watercolors using water from these sites of environmental, social, and cultural confluence. His work has been exhibited recently at Night Gallery (LA), Los Angeles Museum of Art at Commonwealth & Council; MOCA Tucson; and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (Australia), among others, and he has presented public programming with Clockshop and Fulcrum Arts. Wells attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2018 and was a recipient of a 2019 Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant.
What does it mean to make drawings, especially over other art forms?
Watercolor is literally and figuratively a transparent medium. There is no erasing, wiping away, covering over. Every mark that touches the paper—whether intentional, mistaken, or accidental—remains visible in the finished piece. Marks can be scrubbed or wiped away, but this erasure leaves a smudge. Drawing allows editing, reworking, and re-thinking to remain visible. Sensations to the eye become perceptions in the mind, and they are recorded by the body: fingers, wrist, arm, shoulder. In our media-saturated culture, drawing is the most unmediated artistic medium. Vulnerability. Transparency. Immediacy. Accidents. Mistakes. Gesture. The choice to embody these values is what it means to make drawings over other art forms.
What kind(s) of rituals are embedded in your drawing practice?
For every watercolor, I begin by soaking the paper in water proximate to where the piece will be made—the Arroyo Seco, the Los Angeles River, the ocean. For several meditative minutes, I hold the paper underwater and watch it ripple with the current. The white paper becomes a screen for projections of bubbles and swirling shadows as tiny insects and strands of algae skitter across the surface. The paper absorbs the water, particles of the environment creating a ground for its image.
In what ways does Los Angeles influence (or not) your approach to drawing?
The quality of light of Los Angeles lends itself to my graphic approach to watercolor: space created with transparent layers and form created through crisp dark shadows. I prefer the blinding hallucinatory sun of midday when colors are dark, lights are blinding, and everything is encircled with black shadows. Additionally, the surfeit of sunny days is particularly conducive to working outside. Washes dry fast in the hot sun, allowing me to work quickly.
The scarcity of water in Los Angeles and the fact that the water we do see begs questions like “where does it come from?” and “what’s in it?” make this a compelling artistic subject and medium.