Edna Andrade
Night Sea
1977
Acrylic on canvas
72 x 71 15/16 inche
"The artist Edna Andrade is inspired by nature, perhaps because she grew up in Portsmouth, Virginia, near the seacoast. After attending
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and
working as an architectural draftsperson,
Andrade began to paint geometric abstractions like Night Sea. While making this painting, she remembered swimming with her young friends in the Chesapeake Bay on a beautiful summer night in which there was a lot of phosphorescence, a glowing light emitted by tiny sea creatures in the dark: “As we splashed around in the waves we got these little
sparkles all over us, and in a way that was one of the most wonderful
experiences visual and tactile, and everything else that I could
ever imagine.”