“This painting began with a prompt on grief for a show that has since been delayed until 2021. I thought it ironic, yet appropriate, that I began the painting during a time of grief and lament for our world during this pandemic. Even the blank canvas upon which I painted holds special meaning: handed off in a parking lot at the start of isolation, it was owned by a friend who was tragically killed last year in a car accident.

And so, grief upon grief, I set about painting this wintery scene from down my road in Sugar Hollow of the Moorman's River. For me, nature binds me to my fellow humans. It is something nearly universally accessible, even if only from a window. And in winter, as in pain and death, we need to cling to one another, to hope for new life, for spring, the most.”

— Christen Yates (Charlottesville, VA)