Blue Angel

Emily Mason’s canvases lie at the junction of Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting, employing veils of vivid pigments and spontaneous mark making. The wife of fellow painter Wolf Kahn, Mason's works—while abstract rather than her husband's representational landscapes—often reference the artist's own experience of nature. Mason once poetically explained, “My work, while never a depiction of nature, is analogous in its process to the workings of nature and, in its result, aims for the beauty of the interior of a great storm or a day lily.” (as quoted in E.W. Almino, "'That Magical Thing': The Poetry of Emily Mason," Emily Mason, New York, 2018, p. 6) Indeed, as demonstrated by the present work, Robert Wolterstorff writes, “She revels in the natural world she encounters, but never illustrates it. Like the words and phrases she collects, she also gathers visual impressions: the particular look of the wind tossing a flowering shrub, the texture of moss, morning light…By giving visual embodiment to change, wear, age, becoming, they capture time itself.” ("Gesture into Color: Early Works on Paper by Emily Mason," Color Gesture: Early Works of Emily Mason, Bennington, Vermont, 2019)