Gordon Mayfield's immersive watercolors reveal a deep emotional connection to the wild. His work is rooted in years spent in remote wilderness and a life lived on the cliffs of Big Sur. His passion for painting developed in the 1990s during yearly ten-day backpacking trips into the Trinity Alps Wilderness, where the landscape demanded to be recorded. Watercolor began as a tool for studies toward larger oils, but the medium soon took on a life of its own. Its immediacy and fluidity proved a natural match for the light and atmosphere he was chasing, and it became the heart of his practice. Mayfield paints plein air, surrounded by the beauty of coastal California, and travels throughout the West in pursuit of landscapes that move him. He and his wife live in the hills above Monterey Bay, where he also maintains his studio.