Michele Thompson

Landscape painting with a limited palette.

The opportunity for immersive experimentation in painting landscapes gives me peace and a sense of fulfillment within myself. The act of painting gives my body a way to physically and mentally revert to a time when art soothed the fresh wounds of my traumas and provided a method of escape from life’s realities. I create emotive and textured landscapes that reflect my deep desire to understand what it means to be alive, to be vital.

I use a limited palette of Titanium White, Ivory Black, Pale Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red, and Ultramarine applied to stretched canvas or canvas panel. I usually complete paintings with a rapid wet-on-wet method where I forgo a detailed underpainting in preference to a simple sketch and impasto paint application. En plein air, I energetically complete paintings in one to three sessions. Larger paintings are completed in my studio and have an overarching concept, a more structured process, and a planned ending in comparison to the spontaneous nature of my smaller-in-scale plein air paintings. The texture and stylistic qualities produce nonsense at close view, compelling the viewer to observe the whole painting at a distance. Repeating lines and shapes of ...