Passing Through Kaweah Gap by Ariel Lee
10"x8" ($40) | 14"x11" ($85) | 20"x16" ($275)
30"x24" ($1,450) | 40"x30" ($2,650) | 50"x40" ($5,300)

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Southern California-based painter Ariel Lee predominantly focuses on the landscapes she loves–being an avid hiker, camper and climber, Lee’s relationship with the terrain she depicts is an intimate one. Passing Through Kaweah Gap, our third edition with the artist (check out Morning Sun Up To Forester Pass and Alpine Glow in the Valley), is exemplary of Lee’s keen eye for composition, motion, and grandeur.

The piece, which depicts the lowest east–west pass through the Great Western Divide in California’s Sequoia National Park, places the viewer right in the mouth of nature. Have you ever been trekking in the great outdoors and experienced that moment where you stop moving to look at your surroundings and are utterly stunned? This painting is that moment.

Lee, who works in gouache using a bold palette and layered brushwork, nods to David Hockney and Fairfield Porter in both approach and a focus on color and form. The artist is a powerful colorist, and all of her work is dreamlike in its technicolor splendor. She deftly captures the essence of what it is to feel like you’re having a psychedelic experience just by immersing yourself in nature.

Passing Through Kaweah Gap is indeed immersive–the rhythm of the rocky peaks jutting out from the horizon line and the way she’s depicted the descent down to the viewer’s immediate foreground can’t help but place you right in the thick of the scene. Lee, who stood in this spot while a storm was about to break out, explains: “There was electricity in the air and snow falling in the middle of August. My goal with this piece was to focus on the kinetic energy felt in the air—to convey the dynamic change in the atmosphere.” That the artist chose to depict this multifaceted moment is not a surprise, as her work always pulses with the vivacity of nature.