The Synchronicity 2021

Lanise Howard made The Synchronicity. You can tell that the painting was made with really careful brushwork, building up this imagined space with a mix of warm and cool colours. I'm really drawn to how the leaves are painted. They are pretty flat planes of vivid green but the way Howard uses hard edges and strong shadows makes them pop. I see a really subtle, beautiful gradient in the sky with these quiet vertical brushstrokes. It gives the illusion of space, like the air itself is moving behind the plants. It’s a really serene colour, it calms the other colours down. The image has a really clear composition, a combination of geometric and organic forms, that remind me of Etel Adnan's paintings. But here, instead of mountains and horizons, we get these hummingbirds and lily pads, a different kind of landscape emerging. So beautiful!