Carol Benson-Cobb's Hues in Slate, Small

A slender, vertical canvas framed in champagne-finished wood, Carol Benson-Cobb's *Hues in Slate* commands the wall with the quiet authority of a well-placed architectural element. The elongated proportion — nearly five feet in height against a narrow width — gives the composition an almost columnar presence, drawing the eye upward and lending any room a sense of considered verticality. Benson-Cobb's work speaks in gradations and atmosphere, and this smaller scale renders her palette all the more intimate, suited to a vignette or a narrow gallery wall where subtlety is the point.