“I’m starting off spontaneously, and then things emerge.”

Roberta Aylward paints abstract artworks using a big range of colors, tools and textures. What may start as an array of stainless steel washers may get the cut-paper stencil treatment, then a wash of acrylic paint before a squeegee rearranges the whole.

I visited Aylward’s Portland, Oregon, studio this fall where we talked about why she views her work as documentary in nature, why the hardware store is sometimes better than the art supply store, and what she’s looking for as she pushes and pulls her work between the abstract and the familiar.

Find her work here.