New Work: A Backward Glance, oil on panel, 12 x 12 inches
- Nancy Rynes
- Oct 8
- 2 min read
Oil on panel, 12in x 12in
$1250 in gallery-quality frame
About this oil:
Bathed in the golden light of early morning, a lone coyote pauses mid-stride and looks back, its gaze briefly meeting the viewer’s before vanishing into the rolling terrain. The scene is intimate and ephemeral, a quiet acknowledgment between two beings sharing the same moment at daybreak.
The painting stemmed from a fleeting encounter between me and a little bit of wildness—a single, suspended moment at dawn in the open hills of Colorado. On a photography trip, I caught sight of a coyote moving through the tall, sunlit grasses. For the briefest instant, the animal turned its head and met my eyes, and in that meeting something timeless and wild was exchanged. Moments later, the coyote crested the hill and disappeared, leaving behind only the shimmer of morning light on the grasses.
In translating that experience to paint, I wanted to not only to record the encounter but to evoke the radiance and energy of the moment. The glow that pervades the painting arises from the deliberate interplay of complementary colors—cool violets and blues woven into the shadowed areas to heighten the warmth of the sun-struck golds and ambers. This chromatic contrast breathes life into what could easily have been a painting of overwhelmingly warm colors. But using the cool against the warm created a subtle vibration and glow. The brushwork, loose yet deliberate, captures the sweep of grasses and the quiet stir of dawn air, while the coyote’s poised figure anchors the scene with alert presence.
Compositionally, I was deliberate with the movement of the viewer’s eye through the piece. It starts at the bottom right and is led from the foreground’s soft texture up through the curve of the hill, following the line of light that guides the coyote’s path. The deliberate balance between form and atmosphere invites the viewer to linger in that threshold between night and day, civilization and wilderness, human and animal.
“A Backward Glance” is both a study in light and a meditation on transience. It reminds us how beauty often resides in what cannot be held—the brief meeting of eyes, the hush before movement, and the golden promise of a new dawn spreading over the land.
Price includes a standard gallery-quality frame. Framing options are available.
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