Texas-based artist Erin Neel Newton's large-scale paintings of dense, immersive foliage center nature as a space for shared wonder, non-verbal communication, and mood regulation. Depicted life-sized with a deceptively shallow pictorial depth, her intimate and expansive works allow the viewer to get an immediate and palpable sense of the tangibility of the experience of being outside, near foliage and trees. Rooted in painterly realism, Newton's work employs abstraction as a base note that permeates everything, with large-scale, frontal compositions emphasizing undulating movements of color and space. This is implied by titles such as “Hither Me, Little Gem Ghosts,” an oil painting of swirling magnolia leaves and blossoms and branches that simultaneously deconstructs into playful, densely textured marks.
Newton’s work has been exhibited and collected widely and has received awards and recognitions including London art critic Ben Street's “Top Ten Pick of the Week” for Saatchi’s online gallery.