Amy Lincoln makes imaginative, intensely hued paintings of the natural world. After painting plants for many years, she chooses to simplify her imagery in this new body of works depicting air, water, light and clouds, none of which has a local color or concrete form. Every bit of matter in this world can reflect or refract light and appear in any possible color. While Amy's paintings feel spacious, they have intricately considered every inch of the surface. I am inspired by folk art and naïve painting such as works by Henri Rousseau or Ivan Rabuzin. Sometimes the idea for a painting is inspired by the weather, such as lightning, a rainbow, an overcast sky. The starting point might also be a color I see on an interior design blog, or from something I see on a TV show about physics and the universe. The clouds and moon in the paintings are often modeled and sculptural, but other things like stars are flat and painted like a symbol. I paint the waves of the ocean in distinct rows, as you might see in a stage set. The sun is an opportunity for an abstract pattern radiating out from a circle. I like systematically transitioning from one color to another in bands across the surface of the painting, to create an illusion of space and also to discover unexpected colors along the way. - Amy Lincoln