A landscape is never a faithful image. The vistas portrayed in paintings have no counterpart in reality — they are constructions put together by the skill of the artist, artificial creations that while referring to a certain place, nonetheless invent new scenarios out of the elements available. Hills and mountains move under the direction of a brush giving definition to the line of the horizon; clouds are arrested in the sky as the light takes on a golden hue; entire fields are displaced and new flowers and trees are planted; rivers are reversed; coastlines reimagined. Landscapes are like windows onto unknown lands, discovered in the course of their making. Like still-lifes, landscapes are composed of objects whose sole purpose is to form a compelling appearance. Uncommon colors and textures, familiar but strange seeming things, a disorienting sense of scale and perspective — these are the features uniting landscapes and still-lifes, which exist as pleasure domes for the eye. These paintings by Sebastian Powley exist to be looked at: they present themselves subtly but persist in the mind, appearing like a flash when your eyes flutter shut.

- Patrick Zapien