Louise Belcourt’s studio in Brooklyn faces west, and on a sunny day is showered in afternoon light. The wide view looks over low-rise buildings that are clustered to the river’s edge. The Williamsburg Bridge is off to the left, like a ramp that projects to a denser, larger and more massive part of the world.

A white light permeates her new work, both clear and reflective. It could be the light bouncing off water or reflected by a building façade. Volumes are floating and taut. There is a strong emphasis on line, color and texture, of forms and surfaces brushing up against one another, almost kissing, or pulling apart.

Branches and limbs reach out, spread, and sprout new growth. Small buds appear. There is sense of wide-open space, but filled with activity and life.

Belcourt says that her new paintings and gouaches are “built from the ground up”. The gouaches are begun out of doors, but are finished, along with the paintings, in her Brooklyn studio. Her new paintings and gouaches are a bridge between two worlds: the natural and the man-made, and our sense of being in it.