Yellowstone (rotated)

Deep ocean blues sweep across most of this canvas by Catherine de Potter, only to run into a burst of rusty orange and pale cream tucked into one corner. Painted in 2010, the work borrows its name from Yellowstone National Park, but it is not a picture of the place in any literal sense. De Potter was after the mood of it instead, the steaming hot springs, the strange mineral crusts, and those famous pools where colors bleed into one another. The mix of cool and warm tones keeps the surface feeling alive, as if steam and water are still moving through it.

The title tells us something playful too. This piece has been rotated, so what you see depends partly on which way it hangs. Seen one way, the orange edge reads like the banks of a river winding through a delta. Flip it around and the blue could easily pass for a heavy sky pressing down on the sea. That flexibility is the point. De Potter leaves plenty of room for your own imagination to fill in, and the colors will suggest different things to different people. Let your eye follow where the blue thins into misty white and decide for yourself what it becomes.