Carmel Valley 1982

This is Eyvind Earle's "Carmel Valley," but we don't know exactly when he made it. I can imagine him out in the California landscape, maybe a bit sunburned, trying to figure out how to wrangle all that gorgeousness onto a flat surface. Look at the way he’s layered those greens and yellows to suggest depth and shadow. It’s like he's distilled the whole scene down to its essence, each little stroke feeling deliberate, almost architectural. The whole thing has this graphic quality, right? It reminds me of Matisse. The precision and care he took, each shape defined and yet part of the bigger picture. I think that the work of one artist always carries over into the work of another. We painters are always having a conversation, shouting ideas and images back and forth, across time.