Michael Ornauer

It began when I found a piece of chalkboard. It was an old children’s schoolboard, matte black lacquer with red lines.

The find reminded me of school and how the board was the first large surface I could paint on. Actually, we students weren’t allowed to draw on it. But I remember how wonderful it felt to draw long, varying-width lines with colored chalk.

So I took the found chalkboard piece and drew horizontal lines with pastel chalk across the black paint. That became the first series: pastel on chalkboard lacquer and primed wood.

Next came a series on tinted linen (instead of wood as the base). I added oil pastels, and the lines became thicker, until the gaps between them — and thus the background — disappeared entirely.

Only varying-width, horizontal stripes remained. This created a rhythm of color and surface. The next step was switching from oil pastel to oil paint. That allowed for smoother transitions between the stripes and the blending of color tones.