Changing Seasons

Far Shore ©Kesler Woodward 2025 acrylic on canvas 36″ x 36″

All three of my new paintings grew out of reflection on the change of seasons–recollection of summer, the glorious light of autumn, and anticipation of winter. I love the drama of seasonal change in the North. Far Shore is an imaginary place, but the striking twilight of northern fall is real. There is nothing gentle about this annual transition. I like that it’s so inexorable.

I Remember Summer ©Kesler Woodward acrylic on canvas 20″ x 16″

I almost never know what my paintings are about until they are done. It wasn’t until this one was finished that I realized that it may be my first painting ever that’s entirely about summer. These are the woods where I live, part of the boreal forest I have painted for so many years, but instead of in twilight, instead of bare and waking in the spring, fiery with autumn, or draped in the frost of winter, the forest is dense and green. I have no idea where this summer scene came from in my imagination. I am grateful every year for the months of continuous light the summer brings, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually celebrated in my work the deep greenness of the forest in June and July. Painting in October, I guess I really was remembering summer.

Coverlet ©Kesler Woodward 2025 acrylic on canvas 24″ x 30″

Long before the snow started falling in September in Fairbanks, I was thinking about how it must have begun descending in earnest on the mountaintops of the Alaska Range to our south. I am always looking forward to snow, and it made me happy to know that while I waited for it to arrive at my house, it was already starting to provide a coverlet for every bit of bare rock in the high country.