One of the best and most dangerous questions to ask me is: What are your favorite paintings in the gallery right now? Dangerous because the answer changes constantly. A piece can hit me differently depending on the light, the weather, the mood I’m in, or even what conversation I just had with someone standing in front of it.
But today, these are my five.
1. An Elaborate Dream
June Stratton
30" x 30"
Oil, plaster, and metal leaf on panel
June Stratton’s An Elaborate Dream is one of those paintings that keeps unfolding the longer you spend with it. It depicts the back of a strong woman, with flowers drifting—almost floating—through the shared viewing space. There’s something so powerful in that choice alone: the figure feels grounded, while the floral elements seem to move between her world and ours.
What really gets me is the way June paints some of the flowers with a blurred softness and shadow. It creates this dreamlike push and pull, where parts of the image feel tangible and others seem just out of reach. And then there’s the surface itself. June uses her signature process of creating plaster casts, introducing sculptural elements into the painting. That added dimension gives the piece a physical presence that makes it feel both delicate and commanding at the same time.
2. Walking Goldie
Nathan Durfee
8" x 12"
Oil on panel (framed)
This one is especially fun for me because it’s also personal. Walking Goldie by Nathan Durfee is a collaboration with me, Robert Lange. I had painted a Christmas bulb ornament, and somehow Nathan looked at it and saw the makings of an astronaut helmet. That leap still makes me smile.
That’s part of what I love so much about Nathan’s work—his imagination has this effortless elasticity to it. He can take an object and completely transform it, not in a way that feels forced, but in a way that feels inevitable, like of course it was always meant to become this strange and wonderful thing. Walking Goldie carries that playful magic. It’s inventive, a little surreal, and full of the kind of visual wit that sticks with you.
3. Luna
Larisa Brechun
30" x 30"
Oil on panel
Larisa Brechun’s Luna is one of those paintings that quietly owns me.
The surface is rich and textured, and the moment where the muse morphs into the moon makes my heart sing every time I see it. It feels tender and mysterious, like a transformation caught in a whisper rather than a spotlight.
What’s especially interesting about this piece is that I actually think it looks best in a dimly lit room. In the brightness of the gallery, some of its softer magic gets washed out. But when I’m locking up at night and the lights are off, I always walk by it—and I always stop. In that lower light, the painting seems to exhale. The mood deepens, the mystery sharpens, and suddenly it feels less like an image and more like a memory or a dream.
4. Now Left
Ted Walsh
30" x 63"
Oil on panel
Ted Walsh’s Now Left is hanging behind the gallery desk right now, and it stops people constantly. There’s an immediate hush to it. It depicts a quiet house filled with mystery, and the whole composition feels like a balance between haunting and hopeful.
That tension is exactly what makes it so compelling. The house feels still, but not empty. There’s a sense that something has happened—or is about to. And then there’s that little hidden fire in the field, a detail I love more each time I notice it. It’s small, but it changes everything. It suggests warmth, danger, memory, narrative. It promises a story without ever fully telling it.
To me, that’s one of the great pleasures of painting: when it trusts the viewer enough not to explain itself.
5. Hope
Matthew Cornell
12" x 12"
Oil on panel
Matthew Cornell’s Hope is a small painting, but it carries a lot.
It depicts a road leading to somewhere—or anywhere—which already gives it a feeling of possibility. Then there’s the yellow roadside sign. Normally, a sign like that prepares you for an arrow, a curve, a yield, some practical instruction about what’s ahead. But here, it simply reads: hope.
It’s such a simple gesture, and such an effective one. The painting is filled with detail, but it never loses its clarity. It feels open, quietly emotional, and deeply human. It’s a perfect small piece, and yes—filled with detail, but more importantly, filled with hope.
So those are my picks today. Ask me again tomorrow and I’ll probably give you five different answers. That’s the joy of living with art—certain works step forward at certain moments and ask for your attention in a new way.
But today, these five are the ones I can’t stop thinking about.
