Sian Ka'an

Painted in 2010 by Andrada Anghel, "Sian Ka'an" borrows its title from a sprawling biosphere reserve on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. In the Mayan language, the name means "origin of the sky," and that idea seems to swim through the whole canvas, where blues, golds, and soft whites melt into one another like a place caught somewhere between water and air. Nothing here is pinned down or drawn sharply, and that seems to be the point.

Anghel works in the loose, gestural language of abstract painting, letting the paint drift and pool instead of shaping it into recognizable forms. Warm amber and rusty streaks push through the cooler tones, hinting at sunlight spilling over a wetland or catching on the surface of shallow water. The reading is left wide open. One person might spot a coastline, another a passing storm, and someone else may just enjoy the swing of the brush across the surface.

The real charm of the work is that it goes after a feeling rather than a faithful picture. Anghel does not try to copy the reserve as a photograph might. Instead she reaches for its mood, that raw and slightly untamed sense of wild nature, and lets the colors carry it.