Grey Hills 1941

Georgia O'Keeffe made "Grey Hills" with oil on canvas. I imagine O’Keeffe building up the forms in layers. Look at how she has blended browns, oranges, and creams. It’s like she’s coaxing the hills into being, allowing them to emerge slowly through gentle curves and soft gradations. She’s really working the surface, playing with light and shadow to give the hills a sense of depth and volume. You know, it’s like she’s feeling the weight of the earth in her hands, translating that into paint. I can feel her, in my mind's eye, considering this, thinking about that. It’s always interesting to me how artists see and find and borrow from each other's ideas. Her choice of color and form relates to other modernist painters who, like O’Keeffe, were also finding new ways of seeing and representing the world around them. Artists are always in conversation across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. Painting is a process with lots of ambiguity, open to multiple interpretations and meaning.