He says that’s the point.
When you look at Shaun Acton’s huge paintings at Move Cold Spring, you know there’s something in motion. But it’s hard to say what.
“Tipping Point,” which measures 5 feet by 5 feet, is grayish blues and greens with pink and white streaks that look like windblown raindrops. Or maybe they’re streaking fireflies. Or a meteor shower? The white patch in the center could be a cloud or a wave breaking over a beach.
Hard to say.
“I like the viewer to bring to the work whatever they’re getting from it,” says Acton, who lives in Philipstown. “I like that ambiguity and openness.”
He says that people have complimented his abstract landscapes, seascapes or spacescapes, the “swarms of bees, birds or insects, wind patterns. ocean currents, flight patterns, galaxies, mathematical equations.”
“It’s fun to guess what story the artist is telling,” says Marcie Rummel, a former art buyer for New York City ad agencies who lives in Nelsonville. “There must be one because each work is so focused.”
“Squall” has a silver background and streaks of red and orange that could be the landing lights from an airplane. But if that’s it, why is there a park bench? Or maybe that’s a track-meet hurdle.
Katie MacInnes, who owns the exercise and dance studio, said one young boy in a Mini-Movers class said “Squall” was shooting fire, so the class created a dance, “Shoot the Fire,” based on that assessment.
Acton’s paintings are part of Move’s Art Movement series. The studio at 37 Chestnut St. also has shown work by Beacon artist Elizabeth Castagna, who uses techniques like walking on the canvas with paint-covered shoes, shooting a water gun or hanging unfinished paintings from a tree.
Acton’s process is more conventional: oil paint on canvas with a brush. He works on several projects simultaneously and says each can take a year to finish.
“I like the idea of freezing movement in time,” he says, citing as inspiration Leonardo da Vinci’s flying cannonball, in which he used dots to outline the trajectory. Acton is also inspired by the “pocket drawings” of William Anastasi, the New York City conceptual artist who gained fame in the 1960s. Anastasi would hold a pencil and a piece of paper in his pocket and draw while walking to work. The graphite scribbles have been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art.
Acton has tried various methods to capture movement, such as drawing while listening to the idiosyncratic electronic music of Aphex Twin and “making my little staccato marks,” he said.
Growing up in Colorado, Acton won a coloring contest at age 5 and took home a 6-foot version of Ernie, Bert’s buddy from Sesame Street. After earning a bachelor of fine arts in Denver, he took up printmaking, moved to New York City to “play in the big pond” and settled in Brooklyn. For over 20 years, he has worked as a studio assistant to Pat Steir, the contemporary artist known for her Waterfall paintings, which feature paint cascading down the canvas.
Acton moved with his family to the Hudson Valley during the pandemic and says he loved the beauty that inspired the Hudson River School painters in the mid-19th century. His own work, such as “Big Pink,” is less conventional. It’s a spacescape with celestial swirls that represent stars. Or maybe they’re fish.
