Sun In The East 1988

Ronnie Landfield gives us “Sun In The East,” a dreamlike landscape conjured with washes of color. I can see the painting emerging, almost like a watercolor, but with the scale and ambition of an oil painting. I bet Landfield was thinking about Rothko and maybe even Turner, chasing that elusive light, that feeling of being enveloped by color. The paint isn’t thick, but he’s built up layers, letting them bleed into each other, creating this hazy, atmospheric space. And those framing devices on either side? They’re like architectural elements, anchoring the dream to reality. It is almost like looking through a window. Landfield is part of a lineage of color field painters, all pushing the boundaries of abstraction while still hinting at something real, something felt. It’s like they’re saying, "Hey, painting can be a feeling, a memory, a mood." And that's why we keep painting; that's why we keep looking.