Neptune 2 (rotated)

Named after the god of the sea, Catherine de Potter's "Neptune 2" pulls you into a world of deep, moody blue. The colors move across the canvas like clouds drifting over water at night, with hazy patches of pale light breaking through the darkness. Scattered white specks hover in the blue, and depending on your mood they might read as stars in a wide sky or tiny bubbles floating up from the deep. The rough weave of the canvas peeks through here and there, giving the whole surface a sense of movement and life.

Painted in 2010, this abstract work leaves plenty of room for your own interpretation. No horizon line or clear object anchors the scene, just soft layers of color blending into one another. The title carries an extra twist since the piece was rotated, meaning de Potter changed how we are meant to view it. What might look like a distant horizon could just as easily be a curtain of fog, and neither answer is wrong. Works like this are less about seeing a specific thing and more about the feeling that washes over you as you stand in front of them.