Kathyrn Lynch: Winter Stream

A winding stream pierces through a snowy landscape, the ground made thick through dappled brushstrokes. The snow seems to glide and dance and jump, it merges with and becomes the cloudy fog which hangs over the scene like a thin curtain, at times giving way to reveal patches of frozen earth below, cool terracottas tinged with icy purples. It carefully caresses the edges of tree trunks, pushes forth their sinuous shapes, some cut short and capped by snow, squat and stoic and hardened by ice. Winter Stream depicts a fictitious landscape grounded in memory; rather than depicting fixed locations, Lynch prefers to capture the environmental conditions of a place, exploring light, temporality and atmospheric flux. 

As the trees near the top of the painting, they begin to gently twist towards the light, adopting its warm yellow hues before dissipating entirely. They emit no shadows – these gestural forms only mimic reality, set aside from time, both familiar and uncertain. On the right side of the canvas smaller trees like gentle echoes cling to its edge, obscured by layers of snow. These ambiguous forms created by layered brushstrokes cast the painting into obscurity – soft and tentative, they allow the texture of the canvas to peer through, compressing both surface and atmosphere.

Beyond the foreground, the muted forms of gently rolling hills suggest a world which exists outside our vision, waiting for the forthcoming season. The reeds, which like spindly fingers bend back over themselves in defeat, have not yet felt the light’s warm touch, still wilting. Painted in earthen tones of ivory, sage and muted oranges they still belong to the winter and her icy embrace, though perhaps they will begin to see the glimmer of light which has begun to gently cascade along the water’s surface, airborne as the river sways and sharply curves. The whole composition seems to dance towards this promise of spring – short brushstrokes capture the glint of icy forms gently pierced by light. The river transports it along its length, reflects it – it is at once the dead of winter and the birth of a new season, the air feels cool yet crisp and the atmosphere is one of promise.