The Subtle Landscapes of Megan Lightell

Megan Lightell is a landscape painter from Tennessee whose work I came across just a few weeks ago.

Her paintings are fairly large, so it’s difficult to really do them justice here. In fact, the painting just below titled Long Memory is five feet wide.

(Incidentally, this particular format is great for landscapes because it gives the viewer a naturally wide view.)

The quality that stood out to me most in Lightell’s artwork was subtlety; both in her use of color and composition.

Influencing the color palette of each painting is a diffuse, ambient light - there’s almost no directional illumination at all.

So without strong shadows or highlights, Lightell’s landscapes become less about the individual objects that make them up (the trees, hills, clouds, etc) and more about the entire scene.

And, although her compositions often seem simple, it’s primarily because of the visual space she creates in her paintings. The gently curving land and muted colors also combine to form a specific mood throughout her entire body of work.

Overall, I find Lightell’s work very compelling, yet for a different reason than I’d normally write about.

Her paintings aren’t intense or full of contrast, but there’s a sense of solitude and contemplation in them that just seems. . . honest.

And that’s something worth paying attention to.

To see more of Megan Lightell’s landscapes, check out her website at www.meganlightell.com.