Beneath A Silent Sky 1992

Eyvind Earle's "Beneath a Silent Sky" is a landscape painted in bold, flat shapes of color. You can tell that Earle was really feeling the desert light and the stillness of the place, trying to capture a sense of vastness and quiet. I imagine Earle, brush in hand, carefully layering those gradients, one precise stripe next to the next. It's almost meditative, right? The way the purple sky meets the orange earth, it’s like he’s trying to distill the whole scene down to its essence. There’s a bit of Georgia O’Keefe here, sure, but it feels very individual. Painters, we’re always looking at each other's work, borrowing ideas, riffing off what came before. That’s how we learn and grow, by engaging in this ongoing conversation, and Earle makes a valuable contribution.