Title: Multicolor Ice and Mist II
Artist: Cathryn Cooper
Medium & Materials: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 10" x 10"
Gallery Overview
Multicolor Ice and Mist II is an intimate square-format abstract landscape that continues Cathryn Cooper’s seasonal exploration of warmth, frost, and shifting atmosphere. In this 10" x 10" work, a brilliant corridor of golden-orange foliage cuts through cool blue mist and dense woodland shadow, creating a vivid contrast between late-autumn color and the first breath of winter.
Artwork Description
Across a compact 10" x 10" canvas, Cathryn transforms a mist-filled New England valley into a richly layered study of light, weather, and woodland structure. The composition moves beyond traditional perspective, relying on transparent acrylic washes, dry-brushed scumbling, and loose calligraphic linework to make the damp seasonal air feel immediate and tangible. The lower portion is grounded by a dark, frosted marsh floor, where deep indigo, slate blue, and charcoal tones suggest tangled branches, cold shadow, and dense vegetation.
Light, Color & Collector Appeal
The visual heart of Multicolor Ice and Mist II lies in its striking temperature contrast. At the center, cadmium orange, molten gold, and warm amber foliage create a final flash of autumn brilliance. Along the right side, cool periwinkle and frosted cerulean washes form a veil of winter mist, layered with slender dark tree silhouettes that add rhythm and depth. Above the softened background hills, a pale sky filters cool daylight across the canopy. Small in scale yet powerful in atmosphere, this original work offers collectors a refined contemporary landscape with vivid seasonal color, tactile surface, and quiet emotional presence.
Style & Composition
- Artistic Style: Abstract Impressionism, Lyrical Abstraction, and expressive tonalist landscape painting.
- Composition: Square-format woodland perspective structured by a dense vertical framework of tree silhouettes, with a luminous V-shaped core of warm foliage breaking through a cool mist-filled forest atmosphere.
- Focal Point: The glowing central clearing where cadmium orange and golden-yellow foliage contrasts against misted periwinkle-blue and charcoal tree lines.
- Color Palette: Cobalt, sapphire, and periwinkle blues balanced by fiery cadmium orange, golden ochre, soft silver-grey, ivory white, and charcoal shadow.
- Lighting & Atmosphere: Backlit morning light filtered through dense fog and frosty mountain haze, casting the lower valley into shadow while giving the foliage a fresh, radiant seasonal glow.
Application & Technique
- Brushwork / Mark-Making: Loose, physical, and layered, with transparent washes building atmospheric depth, sharp calligraphic lines defining branches, and dry-brushed texture shaping the foliage.
- Layering & Depth: Dark saturated trunks and foreground textures pull forward, while low-contrast sky, mist, and distant woodland forms recede into atmospheric space.
- Materials: Heavy-body and fluid acrylic on prepared canvas support, applied with wide wash brushes and fine linework to preserve transparency, movement, and raw surface texture.
Inventory Status: Available for purchase online or in the gallery.
Shipping / Pickup: Shipping is available, with items securely packaged in professional archival materials, insured, and shipped globally; complimentary local pickup is also available at our 23 North Main Street gallery.
