Untitled Pastoral

Elisabeth Higgins O'Connor

Untitled Pastoral, 2006

Work on paper

24" x 23" x 2" ; 61 x 61 x 5 cm

A teeming cast of figures — gas-masked wanderers, wide-eyed animals, and hybrid creatures — crowds a landscape that reads as equal parts bucolic countryside and fever dream. Higgins O'Connor layers graphite, ink, and washes of muted color across the sheet, building up a dense visual narrative where pastoral convention collides with the grotesque. Patches of soft pink and sickly yellow punctuate the predominantly gray-blue palette, drawing the eye through a composition that rewards prolonged looking. Untitled Pastoral channels the raw, compulsive energy of outsider art while demonstrating a sophisticated command of pictorial space and atmospheric depth.