“Morning Walk” 8×8, oil on canvas
I’m looking at my line up of paintings from the month, and if there’s a “which one is not like the others,” it’s this one. I started a folder on my phone called “morning walks” just in case I ever wanted to refer back to some little discovery in a painting. Today’s painting references one of those photos where a little patch of land between two buildings on my morning walk struck me as particularly rich in color.
Over the years, I’ve gotten away from direct landscapes even though aspects of them always make it into my figurative work. There’s something odd about doing a landscape on a small surface, like trying to contain it. But this isn’t some park or some vast, sprawling grassy knoll. It’s an undeveloped lot in a small town, on my route to the coffee shop. It is contained. It is easy to miss.
I started this month with the mantra “pay attention.” So here it is, me trying to.
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Written by Denise Hopkins
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