Tina Cobelle-Sturges

Tina Cobelle-Sturges is a diverse and multifaceted artist equally comfortable with figurative and abstract modes of expression. One could single out three major genres in her work, each with a very distinct style: pure abstraction, abstract or semi-abstract landscapes, and New York City views. The artist is in perfect command of them all. Joyous use of color and space, unique narrative, purity, complex painterly techniques – these are a few aspects that characterize Tina’s work and show her own true self.

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Sturges’ grew up in Ridgefield, Connecticut with her father, internationally known and prolific artist Charles Cobelle.  Besides her father, she has studied under accomplished painters Daniel Greene and Natasha Karpinskaia.  She has taken many classes at the Wooster School, Silvermine Guild and Ridgefield Guild of Artists. Of her artistic upbringing, she remarks, “As Cobelle’s child, I would see him constantly creating and painting everything that would bring joy and happiness to the world around him.”  The influence of Cobelle, who is regarded as one of the last links to the Open Line School of Paris and who studied with Chagall and Dufy, is noticeably evident in her work. 

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In 2023 she was awarded by the Ridgefield Arts Council for her extensive contributions to local arts initiatives. She received the 'Arts' Award in 2022 from ROTA for her artistic contributions to the community.  Painting in oil and watercolor, Sturges has completed numerous murals and other commissioned works for private collectors.

Sturges collaborated with the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum on a painting titled “The Porches of Ridgefield” - a charmingly passionate composition that pays tribute to the Aldrich’s architectural landmark “Old Hundred”, Ridgefield’s 300-year history and enchanting, antique main street homes.  The “Porches” piece is a significant work for Sturges as it vividly reflects her passion for the community, its traditions and its people.   

Tina’s oceanscapes are visually memorable and colorfully brilliant paintings eliciting the invigorating joy of a coming storm and simultaneous emotional calming of the setting sun.  Her body of oceanscapes reflect the meditative and introspective in sensitivity to light and atmosphere. There is a quiet silent quality in these landscapes, and certain transparency one can feel. Overall pastel colors intersect with bright color bands at the horizon line in a beautiful, exquisite way. In her abstract landscape marsh paintings take us to the riot of marshland where the foreground is water and the background is the infinite sky. Nature revealing its own mysteries to the viewer.  It is a very spiritual place in a magical and almost sacred environment.

In recent years Tina has been working in abstract modes.  Tina’s latest works bring out hope and longing for a better world and better future with happiness all around. Tina Sturges uses her negative space in a very sensitive and skillful way, it is as if air currents come in with music and movement.  She allows the viewer to enjoy complexity due to the intertwining of open space and the core of the composition, therefore her paintings have strong atmospheric qualities.  

The play of color with bright bands, or ribbons intersecting with more subdued greys and off-whites is truly captivating.  One might also notice a dancing or moving figure

Amidst this ocean of color, or maybe it is not a dancer but the music itself.  Tina’s vibrancy of energy, her musical rhythms and movement have a lot of symbolism – it signifies joy of life, hope and internal peace. 

Aristotle’s famous phrase “The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance” seems to describe Tina’s are quite accurately. Paintings in her abstract series focus on internal world of feelings, emotions, and sensations.  

Tina has had many solo shows at the historic Keeler Tavern Museum in Ridgefield, CT and was featured in a one woman show at the Cultural Alliance of Western CT and a guest artist at the RPAC Gallery in Ridgefield. She also created the impressive Vietnam War Memorial mural for the Town of Ridgefield, currently displayed in Town Hall.  She is on the Board of Directors of the Ridgefield Guild of Artists, and shows her work at the Geary Gallery in Darien, CT.  While she is well known in Connecticut, Tina’s work is consistently sold and are in private and public collections

worldwide.