Lay of the Land

"Field Study"
Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019
(SOLD)

An art purveyor told me recently that her clients liked landscapes that were "ambiguous". She said that ambiguity allowed her clients to imagine the scene to be anywhere they wanted it to be. I was a bit taken aback, because I invest a great deal of myself in painting landscapes that are very specific--landscapes that immediately inform the viewer whether it is morning or afternoon, hot or cold, windy or calm. Landscapes that you feel you can walk into and breathe the air of.  Landscapes that tell you just how far away that mountain range is. Landscapes that trigger a gasp of recognition.

"Atmospheric Hills"
7 x 14, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019

But. As I reflected further on the art dealer's comment, I concluded that she might simply have used the wrong word. I would prefer to say that the landscape is "universal". In fact, it is the universality of the land that makes it something we can all relate to. We are all creatures of the earth, all gravity bound, all oriented to a certain horizon line. We all breathe the air, feel the breeze, smell the rain, hear the rustle of the leaves. We all feel the warmth of the sun, and the cool of the shadow.

"Road to Petaluma"
18 x 18, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019

These universal aspects of the landscape are ones I try to capture in my paintings. The land has a gesture, or movement, just as a person does. To paraphrase Kimon Nicolaides, the clouds in the sky are practically all movement, reflecting the movement of the wind. Roads move up over hills, and down into valleys. This sense of movement is universal, whether the landscape is at the coast or in the mountains. 

"Two Fields"
9 x 16, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2019

I'm illustrating this post with images of some recent landscapes that are part of my "Earth, Water & Sky" collection. Hope you can see a bit of the universal in them...