Green Mountain Man 1975

Ronnie Landfield made ‘Green Mountain Man’ with paint, but really it's an environment. Look at that olive-y, pea soup ground; it feels like you could step right into it, doesn’t it? The horizontal marks break it up, like roads or paths. That long, dark line—is it a shadow, a horizon? It stretches across, weighty and present, yet it doesn’t quite commit, fading at the end there. Everything here feels a bit tentative, a bit open. Even that little slash of white down at the bottom, like a fallen cloud or a sliver of moon. Landfield reminds me a bit of Agnes Martin in his quiet way of building a world with the bare minimum. Both artists understand that a painting is a process, an idea, a feeling that’s never quite finished, but always there, always open to change.