Doris McCarthy, Storm Coming to the Tree Farm, 2000, oil on panel, 12″ x 16″

They brought her the colour and light that she reveled in. Not that they didn’t provide some challenges along the way but, as in this exceptionally fine plein air panel from a 1999 sketching trip to Tuscany, catching the cloud formations and the changing light falling over the abstracted structure of the hills and rows of trees was worth every drop of life affirming rain to the dry countryside.

McCarthy’s mastery of the brushstroke further captures the ebb and flow of the land in this bold painting.