Tracey Lane’s richly, textured paintings in acrylic are a celebration of the mystery of nature, and the promise and complexity of life that exists in nature. “I’m mostly inspired by the quiet drama of nature – trees bending toward the light, silent reflections, sunlight breaking through clouds,” says Lane. “More recently, I’ve begun to explore the ‘flesh and blood’ wildness of nature through birds” and other wildlife, which, says the artist, are ubiquitous reminders of our important and often shunned responsibilities as stewards of the earth. Lane approaches her mixed media works on panel with energy and brisk movement. Paint is sometimes left dripping on the panel to dry, and other times applied with palette knives in a rich impasto. “My paintings are about the experience of light and shadow, color and texture – the play between the seen and the unseen, and memory and imagination,” says Lane. A resident of Atlanta, Lane earned her bachelors and masters degrees in art history from Emory University in Atlanta. She began painting a series of studies of trees following time spent in the North Carolina mountains near Asheville, though Lane says these works are not intended as literal interpretations of the landscape but rather symbols of life itself. “Even though I’m painting trees they’re all self-portraits in a way,” says Lane, who quotes the late German romantic painter Casper David Friedrich, who said: “The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art.”