2002.
I’m working on a variety of sizes of paintings. On the smaller canvases, the energy explodes slowly on the surface,..... I can control the pressure of the surface and the intensity of the melting paint.
The handwriting is fresh and strong.
The work on bigger canvases need endurance—I work on them for a longer period of time, constructing the painting in several layers, and deconstructing the surface into smaller shapes, so the painting can vibrate.
The freshness of handwriting becomes less important.
The physical character of the acrylic paint gives the opportunity and challenge to play with the drying time. Imprinting the process of change into the body of 34 paintings was a powerful experience.
....generously applying acrylic paint on the surface, from the movement of the first touch of wet paint on white canvas, the first move of the hand over the surface, through to the dance and vibration of color, layer over and over… the process of building a painting is strong and challenging. The images have become references to space, air, water, fire and earth.

Nada Sesar-Raffay, 2002 About “New Work” (December 3-31, 2002, Edward Day Gallery, Toronto)

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 SWING
New Work, 2006-2007
For ten years I worked in acrylic, but now I am back to painting in oils. It has been like returning to a former lover. Everything is familiar, yet not fully explored... Familiar fragrance, density, the character of the material... and yet, nothing is the same as before.
My last show, in 2006, "Architectural Feelings", was marked by a presentiment of imminent tragedy and loss.
Several months later., I started working on the first paintings in the new series, "Waterfalls", in acrylic.... The summer of 2006 was full of light, sun... my sun. I started in white, with a thick layer across the whole canvas 6x6.... With a brush dipped in red, yellow, green, blue, I dove into the white, wet foundation, prancing from one end of the canvas to the other, in curving lines, circles... The next images were more powerful, the paint almost sculpted with the palette knife... Unstoppable energy... like new life, hope, possibility... stirring... To take off, burn up..... but... the color blue within me, the space, meaning, depth, peace... blue and spring green color.... And then after the first explosions of white, blue (the Waterfalls series) I started building up the spaces between the brush strokes... It seemed like the light between the branches of a tree... beyond abandoned, lost ships somewhere to the north... carefully, with control, I wrapped color around some random shapes......
Winter 2007 was long, tough, and dark... empty.... Another trip back into the past and breaking free... balancing... the present exists... the future is unknown.
In the spring of 2007 new colors, oil.... A new, fresh tomorrow... I needed a foundation, but not an empty canvas. The large white picture awaited intervention, a response... Again blue, Paris blue, Prussian green... Manganese blue, ultramarine... The surface of the painting offered resistance with its three dimensions. .. I started out with
the brush between the 'islands' of paint, in the interspaces, dipping
into the space between the dark sky or the sea... a view from above or below... it doesn't matter, and it isn't anyway... a central light streams out from the dark edges, the light actually shines up from the depths... the space is real and generous... the painting is virtually limitless; beyond its frame it is limitless.. And then the challenge of mastering
the obstacles, the brush through the already existing island- forms...
new forms emerged... Blue in blue... Other canvasses also had an acrylic foundation... By ripping out the constraints the path was opened to
light... The paints mixed with white... light, summer, pastel... memory of summer, sea, longing... I painted in the "interspaces"... I sought forms... Travel with no schedule, research... I reworked the already acquired shapes of fields of paint with the ease of a bold conqueror... and again and again... I wanted experience, not possession... I wanted experience and the power of breaking free... I reworked the paintings and
discovered in each one a host of new possible constellations, colors,
forms... A new power came to me that summer, excitement, encounter... I no longer understand duration... everything is a question of depth... If it
is deep... it endures... without or with interruptions... The lasting no
longer lasts and the random – does not stop...
I started new paintings, on pure, blank canvas... with no foundation... Powerful, decisive, resilient, rhythm, energy, everything built in... but, but... one layer... Fresh, too little, yet it communicates... the painting, I mean.
And then it happened, resoluteness, ease, strength... and the brush finally defined, with its own rhythm, led by an inner acceptance of the unacceptable, the impossible, in the primary colors of nature, a mature summer, green, light, dark, red, yellow, three-dimensional, rich, firm, yet sensual...
Still undetermined, yet defined on canvas... Determined, yet undefined... SWING! That's it.
I painted in lines, interweaving paints, quick, wet to wet... fresh... The possible is resolute, immediate, fresh yet deep... The painting... the painting lives... only the painting... It is autumn already, I don't know what it is, but I am painting in ripe earth tones, the fruitful dying summer... And in me are still the colors of green, yellow, Paris blue, Prussian green... life.
Nada Sesar-Raffay
Toronto,
November 2.2007SWING