Tennessee-born artist Pamela Jorden applies her paint in directed, pushed and dragged flows. She actively and physically manipulates the material of her work. The linen is pulled, stretched, and incised. It wraps around the convex and concave curves of the stretchers, and gives solidity to the more atmospheric qualities of the painted surface. “For me, color is surprising. My response to it can be totally visceral and emotional, and this makes it endlessly exciting,” Jorden comments. “It interests me to figure out how a color works in a painting, how I can undermine and alter its intensity, or how a color relationship can create a vibration and tension that keeps movement happening in the painting.” Jorden often refers to landscape and qualities of light in her work, associating the exposed areas of linen with the color and texture of the sandy soil of Southern California, where she lives. “My paintings are improvisations, exploring qualities of reflection, energy, movement, magnetism, and light.”