Richard Orient

Autumn

2025

My abstract paintings are also glimpses of nature. Some of these paintings read as landscapes of a different world, a wondrous space. Others are about the more intimate aspects of na...

My abstract paintings are also glimpses of nature. Some of these paintings read as landscapes of a different world, a wondrous space. Others are about the more intimate aspects of na...

My abstract paintings are also glimpses of nature. Some of these paintings read as landscapes of a different world, a wondrous space. Others are about the more intimate aspects of na...

I primarily paint on location, en plein air. Direct observation allows me to translate the light and color of a particular location as I try to capture a specific point in time. The ...

Work on canvas

Provenance Private collection Description Harry Leith-Ross’s Autumn Landscape is a fine example of the spontaneous fluidity of the artist’s painting style. Leith-Ross does not total...

Born in 1934 in Brooklyn, New York, Ira Barkoff’s paintings feature empty, Zen-like landscapes whose stillness reflects a location’s essence. Barkoff seeks to “portray a sense of vastness” and instill feelings of awe in his viewers, he says. Furthering his exploration of the abstract, Barkoff paints in his studio, rather than en plein air, fabricating landscapes from his visual and emotional memories. The Impressionist-turned-Expressionist painter is inspired by the atmospheric qualities of works by Claude Monet and J. M. W. Turner and cites Gerhard Richter as a more contemporary influence. He recently transitioned from using a paintbrush to using a squeegee and palette knives for his work, as the latter allow for greater spontaneity and manipulation of color. He says of his work: “Looking at a blank canvas can be both exciting and frightening at the same time. Most of the time exciting wins out and I plunge in. That is, I paint the landscape, which for me is what it’s all about. The landscape represents nature and contemplating nature is being in touch with God. You could cast me as a modern-day Luminist-Tonalist-Impressionist. Monet’s Water Lilies have been a big influence, along with the landscape painter Wolf Kahn.” “The landscape is what I see before me or from my mind’s eye. When I paint a mountain or a tree, I’m not trying to capture the mountain or tree literally (that’s what a photograph does). I’m trying to express my inner spirit in the painting – to transcend the physical to reach the spiritual.” “My most successful pictures are not those that are the most accurate in terms of nature, but are the ones where the state of my consciousness allowed me to translate my feelings – my deepest inner feelings – to the canvas. When I get into this altered state...