Rodney Bursiel's Ghost Ships

A sweeping horizontal composition by John Richard, "Ghost Ships" moves across its generous field in silver leaf against a deep black ground, the acrylic surface lending the work an almost atmospheric luminosity that shifts with the light. At over five feet wide, the piece commands a wall with the quiet authority of a painted horizon — vessels dissolving into silver and shadow, present and vanishing in equal measure. The layered interplay of wood, leaf, and acrylic gives the work a dimensional restraint that reads as both painterly and architectural, equally at home above a console in a considered entry or anchoring a double-height salon.