A Touch of Magic 1997

Eyvind Earle’s ‘A Touch of Magic’ is like a page torn from a fairytale, bursting with layers of color and dreamlike detail. Imagine Earle, brush in hand, conjuring this landscape into being, one precisely placed mark at a time. Look at the way the light filters through those stylized trees, painting the ground in hues of intense green and blue. I’m struck by the horse standing on the edge of the forest, and the rainbow of color that has been applied with great skill. You get the sense that he might have been trying to capture something just beyond the everyday, a world seen through the eyes of wonder. Earle's dedication to painting gives the impression of a patient alchemist, blending fantasy and reality on the canvas. Artists are always feeding off each other, riffing on ideas across time, and with Earle it feels like he has absorbed something of early Renaissance landscape painting. It’s like he’s whispering, ‘Let's see where we can take this thing called painting, together.’