Piece of the Week: “Quiet Meadows”

One of the most impressive features of David’s work is his ability to portray a landscape’s essence through his impeccable choice in color palette. Each of his pieces combines multiple colors to create a sort of visual harmony, much the same way notes played on a piano combine to make chords. It is almost as if David can hear the frequencies of each color and like a master composer, knows just what note to play to draw out the desired emotion. Our feature piece this week, titled “Quiet Meadows,” with its balance of grayish violets and burnt yellows is no exception.

Its “meadows” are brushed with still vertical blades of honeyed brown grass, suggesting that the warmth and rains of summer have given way to the crisp dry days of late fall. Life has all but left their crackling stalks. Atop the failing grass sits dark violet clumps of what could be bushes or trees. Regardless of what they are, the absence of green in their leaves confirms that the only thing growing is the length of their shadows. Above the horizon of fading life, the sun feebly glows grey white behind lavender clouds.

In “Quiet Meadows” everything stands still. The grass poses statuesque. The twigs are stiff with rigor mortis. The landscape is silent. Not a breeze. Not a chirp. Not a single sound; but harmony, nonetheless.