Sweeping Sea

Gunderson has gradually moved toward all-black paintings since the 1980s, when she first started spending summers on Cape Cod. She remarked, “Immediately you become aware that the water is so very deep, and there are gigantic creatures.” The sense of vastness and enigma in the oceanscapes Gunderson has made since the early 2000s was also prefigured in her anthropomorphic cloudscapes of the 1980s. Although composed solely of black oil paint, the undulating striations seem to shimmer, illusionistically registering a range of silver and white tones.