Between Form and Atmosphere

Two painters whose practices share almost nothing except seriousness. Brooke Borcherding works in acrylic on large-format canvas. Ericka Wolf works in oils that move toward abstraction without fully committing to it.

Borcherding's Standing With The Trees is 40x60 inches of Pacific Northwest forest seen at the moment before dark — the trees are shapes first, organisms second, and the painting knows exactly what it is doing with that ambiguity. Wolf works smaller and stranger: her surfaces are built up in layers, scraped back, built again, so that finished paintings hold the evidence of their own revision. Between Form and Atmosphere was a good title. Both painters work in the space between what a subject is and what paint can make of it.

“Standing With The Trees: the moment before dark. The trees are shapes first, organisms second.”