This exploration of the expressionistic style featured three contemporary artists. The influence of geography is apparent in the work of expressionistic painters Patrick Adams and Karen Spears. Adams “grew up in the middle of a cornfield in Minnesota.” He states that he responds to that absolutely flat landscape. Originally from Texas, Spears also lived for a time in the West—the landscape of these regions has made her “comfortable with vistas.” Guinever Smith says she likes her work to be on the “knife’s edge between realism and abstraction” and paints landscapes at that “moment when things are just about to change.”
Classroom activities and discussion questions available on PBS LearningMedia.