Neptune 3 (rotated)

Catherine de Potter's "Neptune 3," painted in 2010, is a quiet blend of hazy blues and warm brown tones that drift into one another without any firm edges. Rather than showing a clear scene, the work floats in abstraction, hinting at weather more than depicting it. You might read the swirling grays as fog settling over water, or a sky swollen with coming rain. The title points to Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, which suits the deep, watery mood that runs through the whole piece.

Part of the fun here is that the painting refuses to tell you exactly what you are seeing. One person might imagine a stormy coastline, another the murky surface of a faraway world, and both would be right in their own way. Adding to that open feeling, the image has been rotated, so there is no clear sense of which way is up. This is a calm, drifting sort of work, better suited to a lingering look than a passing glance, and it happily lets your thoughts roam wherever the colors lead them.