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Full Moon, Hyatt Lake by Phyllis Trowbridge

  • Title: Full Moon, Hyatt Lake
  • Artist: Phyllis Trowbridge
  • Medium: Oil on wood
  • Size: 8"h x 9"w
  • Creation date: 2007
  • Added to collection: 2019
  • Donor: Gift of the artist
  • Campus: Rock Creek
  • Location: B3/2 Hallway gallery

This lovely painting was made in the moonlight, a feat many artists attempt but few achieve. The oil paint is has been applied on wood with a stiff bristle brush, making the paint of the water, sky and landforms somewhat striated and translucent.  This is in contrast to the moon and its reflection-- painted much more opaquely, and giving the light a dramatic reflectivity.  The painting owes a debt to the work of the 19th Century American painters of moonlight, Albert Pynkham Ryder and Winslow Homer.

The artist writes: "My paintings and drawings each represent an attempt to express and convey my deep connection with the natural world and the feelings it evokes in me.  Those feelings are grounded in a passion and reverence for the land and a love of the outdoors.  Since I work outside most of the time, the experience of the weather, the wind, the sounds I hear, the temperature, the 'sense' of the day, all play a part in the creation of my work."