Estampes d'art par Shilo Ratner

I Am Awareness has been selected for the Greenwich Art Society's fall exhibition, juried by Antonia Pocock of the Whitney Museum of American Art. On view October 22 to November 19, 2026.

Held in geometry. A mountain coast at the edge of day. There is a particular kind of light that seems to slow everything down. It happens late in the afternoon, when the sun begins to drop and the landscape changes. Mountains turn ochre and sienna. Water becomes a darker, quieter blue. The edges of the landscape begin to soften, even as the forms themselves become more defined. That feeling was at the center of Golden Coast, a new 40 × 40 original painting and one of the most layered works I have created in this series.

There are moments in nature when the light changes so quickly that the landscape seems to become something entirely different. A mountain that was familiar a moment ago can suddenly feel new. Planes of color shift. Shadows deepen. The horizon becomes more defined. For me, those moments are often where a painting begins. Sunshine Days grew from that experience. Rather than painting a particular mountain or attempting to recreate a landscape literally, I wanted to explore what happens underneath the image: the geometry, relationships, shifting planes, and changes in light that make a landscape feel the way it does. From landscape to geometry My work often begins with something observed in the natural world, but I don't want the finished painting to simply describe what I saw. I rebuild it. In Sunshine Days, the mountain becomes a series of geometric forms. Warm yellow moves through the composition, creating a sense of light and energy, while the structured planes give the painting its underlying sense of order. The result is an original abstract mountain painting that sits somewhere between landscape and geometry. You can recognize the inspiration without needing to identify the place. Why yellow? Yellow can be an immediate color. It carries light, warmth, energy and optimism. But I wasn't interested in using yellow simply because it is bright. I wanted to see how far I could push the color while keeping the painting grounded in structure. The geometry gives the color somewhere to live. Rather than letting the yellow become purely decorative, I used it as part of the architecture of the painting, helping define space, movement and the relationship between the different forms. The moment before you understand the landscape One of the things I love about abstraction is that recognition can happen gradually. You might first see color. Then shape. Then perhaps a mountain. And eventually the painting becomes less about identifying what you're looking at and more about experiencing it. That is the moment I was interested in with Sunshine Days: the moment when light reorganizes a mountain into something you feel before you understand it. An original painting for a contemporary space Sunshine Days is a 20 × 20 inch original acrylic painting on canvas. It is one of a kind, professionally framed and ready to hang. The scale makes it possible to enjoy the painting on its own or incorporate it into a larger collection of contemporary artwork. The original is currently available directly from my studio. Explore the original Sunshine Days painting → Once the original enters a collection, there will not be another version of this painting. Sunshine Days20 × 20 inchesOriginal acrylic on canvas$2,500Framed and ready to hangShipping included View the original →

Before color begins to speak, value teaches us how to see. Join Shilo Ratner for Power of Value: Monochromatic Abstraction on November 7, 2026.

Lately I have been thinking about what makes an art classroom genuinely open to every kind of mind. A personal reflection on structure, choice, sensory access, and the confidence to make the first mark.

What is minimalist landscape art? Shilo Ratner explores where light ends and dark begins, and how shape, value, and openness keep a landscape alive.