Boston Skyline over Charles River

Painted in oil on canvas, Bisbee brings the Boston skyline into a dreamlike register, with modern towers mirrored on the surface of the Charles River. The painting is alive with texture, her brushstrokes carving out both water and sky, turning the familiar scene into an abstracted cityscape that feels at once real and imagined.

Artist Statement:
I love how the pink sky has so much texture in its surface, some of the underpainting is popping through. Texture is the essence of being tangible which is so important in this digital world. To be able to touch the crevices and feel the grooves, it is definitively real as opposed to the illusion of a virtual image originated in electronics. When I visit a museum, I’ll check out the brush marks to see how thick the paint was laid upon the canvas. This connects me to the artist as a real person, seeing the strokes made by his/her hand. This leads me to ponder the phrase, “an artwork is a living organism” especially when I hear someone say that this artwork speaks to me.

The palette is a symphony of magenta, lavender, and blue, balanced by fresh greens at the river’s edge and glowing reflections on the water. The intensity of colour lends the skyline a heightened emotional charge—turning Boston into a luminous stage set against a textured, almost celestial sky. The painting bridges the tangible and the poetic, capturing not only the look of the city but the living spirit within it.