Landscape III

The diffuse, serene light infiltrating Lois Gold's "Landscape III" captures the atmospheric beauty of the natural world, lending it a mystical, ethereal quality. The artist's skillful use of color and loose, free-flowing brushstrokes across the canvas capture an imaginative world that could alternately evoke a scenic canyon hike or a lavender field in the South of France. The artist leaves the exact details of the scene to the viewer's imagination while hinting at a horizon line shrouded in layers of dense greenery. Earthy beige and ochre tones throughout this composition contrast against accents of rich lilac and bright turquoise present in the foreground. The washes of pastel and jewel tones throughout the scene pay homage to the Impressionist school of painting. Cool, dense tones emerge from washes of translucent olive green pigment, suggesting trees and shrubs bathed in warm sunshine. Areas of mark-making and surface accretion create a visual texture across the canvas, alluding to flowers, plants and undergrowth. This deft application of pigment invites the viewer into the painting, allowing them to wander visually across this verdant natural scene. The artist's use of color and the keen contrast of rapid brush work against the soft washes of pigment suffusing the work's surface allows for the viewer to experience an abstracted Spring reverie in this ebullient yet elusive landscape.