When Artists Change Their Styles

“By the Beautiful, Beautiful Sea,” an example of Judi Ekholm’s emerging abstract style. Submitted.

Local artist Judi Ekholm, known for her colorful poppy landscapes, has announced that she will exhibit some abstract work in her opening show at Edgewood Orchard Gallery in May.

This abstract work, though different from her usual paintings, will retain some of the representational character of her normal repertoire.

“I am not going to gestural abstraction like [abstract artist] Joan Mitchell,” Ekoholm said. “I like Joan Mitchell’s color and her brushwork is fabulous, but I don’t want to go that nonrepresentational. I want to respond to the land.”

For Ekholm, abstract painting is both an exercise and a destination, as well as an opportunity to take a break from the detail that she usually relies on in her work. She’s not deserting landscapes to paint like Jackson Pollock, but she’s placing more emphasis on form and color.

“It’s a different way to see, and I can concentrate on the overall picture and the feel of it,” Ekholm said.

Artists and galleries tend to be cautious about changing styles when their current work has been selling well. Galleries risk a dip in revenue, while artists risk losing reliable buyers. 

Some Door County artists enjoy a protective cushion when they try new styles. They benefit from trusting buyers who have come to know their work and often, develop personal friendships with them over decades.

An artist, a partner in Sturgeon Bay’s SŌMI Gallery and the owner of Avenue Art and Co. on 3rd, Karen Hertz-Sumnicht has both an artist’s and a gallerist’s perspective.

“As an artist, I am back to playing, experimenting,” she said. “I have changed my palette a little bit; I wanted to go quieter. When you sit on Lake Michigan all winter, the colors are dull, subtler.”

As a gallery curator, Hertz-Sumnicht tries to be practical about what she hangs.

“My clientele is 35 to 75, so we look at what we think people might respond to,” she said. “They’re not into evil, dark and moody.”

Hertz-Sumnicht has always admired local artist Emmett Johns for his ability to create both representational and abstract work. Johns has run his own gallery in Fish Creek for years, giving him freedom to paint and exhibit what he wants because he has regular collectors who come to see his latest.

It would be hard for a new artist seeking a gallery to follow his example, Johns said.

“When you are new and have a website with landscapes, portraits and abstracts, a gallery will say, ‘Who the hell are you?’” Johns said. “A new artist today needs a large body of cohesive work. You can’t jump all over the place like I do.”

After an artist changes their style, those who liked their work initially don’t always stick around. Paula Swaydan Grebel, who mostly paints carefully-composed interiors, exhibited a 3-by-5-foot abstract painting at a Miller Art Museum show several years ago. An artist friend came up to Swaydan Grebel after the show and recounted hearing someone ask a companion, “What was wrong with Paula? Why did she change?”

“You always want to change and grow,” said Swaydan Grebel, whose work has been more abstract lately.

Other artists, like Pamela Murphy, incorporate styles different from their own into their usual repertoire.

Murphy’s paintings are instantly recognizable and usually based on vintage photographs, often sourced from eBay. The artist may pick through a hundred to find one image that intrigues her. 

Her work often depicts children playing, contemplating a model sailboat or holding a fishing rod on an empty dock. They appear on canvases that have been painted, scraped and painted again so that the surface feels as vintage as the image.

Two years ago, Murphy took Johns’ abstract painting course at the Peninsula School of Art in Fish Creek.

“Pam’s abstracts were just magnificent,” Johns said. “They were so creative and so exciting.”

Murphy said she came away from the course feeling energized.

“My work is representational and I have no plans to change that,” she said. “But my thoughts are that, gosh, these would make great backgrounds for my figures.”