• Artist: Joan Mitchell, 1956
• Classification: Paintings
• Material: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Overall: 91 × 80 in

Unlike many of her Abstract Expressionist peers, Mitchell never rejected representational influence but built upon nature’s emotive and sensory impressions, especially the power of trees, skies, and water. Hemlock is a dense, vertical painting of rich greens, muted blues, and heavy impastos, conveying its eponymous plant’s energy and malevolence. The painting’s wild brushing and built-up textures convey intense feeling while refusing pure formlessness. Mitchell explained her painting as “remembered landscapes that become inner landscapes,” highlighting psychological richness behind her gestural approach. In this way, Hemlock consists of more than an exercise in abstraction, but a conveyance of internal states and ephemeral sensations. Mitchell’s capacity to integrate memory, mood, and motion makes her a poetic, uncompromising voice of her generation, an Abstract Expressionist.