Carving out the Landscapes

In Carrie Megan’s sweeping and towering coastal landscapes, clouds tinged pink and orange accumulate above the back sides of dunes, over marshes and rivers, fields and pastures. Rather than brushstrokes, her painting shows the effects of palette knives, rollers, and squeegees. Her paintings carry titles such as Sherbert Clouds, Dusky Tide, and Turquoise Drift, offering simple descriptions of abstract vistas. Some, like Soft Yellow Glow, convey just hints of their subject: the green of grass or marshland rises to a low horizon line, where an outcropping of gray that could be a line of trees or boulders rises up against a mostly cloudy sky patched with blue. In one of the higher clouds, the faintest hint of yellow, presumably from the obscured sun, attempts to break out. Other paintings, such as Beach Plum Marsh, are more representational. In this one, the foreground is clearly an estuary. What looks like a tidal river separates its grasses from a far bank, where sand rises to meet dunes covered in vegetation. One might guess this darker green represents scrub pines or rosa rugosa. It’s the beach plum element that’s most abstract. Does the band of dark purple in the marshland depict a cluster of bushes? Or does the title refer to the color of the sky?

In a sense, Megan’s style of painting and interest in these wider spaces arises from a period earlier in her career, when the scope of her work was narrower. She grew up in New York City and came to the art world through the side door of graphic design. In 2005, she discovered botanical art at the Wellesley College Botanic Gardens....