Light Falling Like a Broken Chain; Paradise, 2021

Flashe on linen
©  Mary Weatherford; courtesy the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo by Ian Reeves.

Mary Weatherford has been exhibiting her art since the late 1980s. Drawing from her Southern California upbringing and interest in art history, her painterly style has consistently reimagined the genre of landscape painting by imparting a feminist approach to the Color Field movement. Though she is frequently recognized for her idiosyncratic use of neon light tubes, which she began integrating into her paintings in 2012, Weatherford has always had an interest in atmosphere and light. In Light Falling Like a Broken Chain; Paradise, the artist’s largest painting to date, sweeping brushstrokes of vivid color evoke lush foliage, exotic flowers, and the dramatic tropical meteorological conditions of Kauai, where the artist spent considerable time. While the canvas does not feature the artist’s signature neon tubing—a noteworthy development in some of her newest works—its surface is nonetheless illuminated by a radiant, chainlike column of dazzling white.