DONNA MOYLAN

EICHYBUSH PAINTINGS

August 29, 2020 - October 4, 2020

I found a little house that stood on a ridge outside the village of Kinderhook. Over a few years I took it apart and put it back together in a different way so that now there are windows looking onto its lovely view from every room. There is a wide, deep meadow planted with hay, a line of trees, then a rise of low mountains silhouetted in the distance, purple like the song. 

When I wake in the morning I see the morning light reflected on the Catskills; when I wash the dishes I watch the birds flit around a big tree. I see the weather arrive. To the left far on the horizon the shape of the mountain seems to drop off, always reminding me of the edge of an ocean or a view onto the Mediterranean. I think of Italy, where my son lives alone and out of reach during Covid time. 

Keeping an eye on the sky we turn on the evening TV news but rush out to watch the sunset. 

I only have two days in the week: Thursdays and Sundays — the others blur while I’m under my work-induced hypnosis. Perhaps by Thursday I get a little tired and pick up my head. Looking forward to the weekend by a lifetime of conditioning to do so, I realize it’s Sunday at some point. Even if we have guests on the patio of a Saturday I actually don’t know what day it is. People arrive with masks, take them off to sit where Ben has arranged couches far enough away from each other to be safe. 

My Eichybush paintings are about watching the planet from a pretty spot towards the end of an era, aware of the beauty and melancholy of life. The paintings are about climate change and the pandemic, about being together and missing one’s friends and family. They are about being giddily alive while living with a background dread, about having a lot of time and feeling rushed. 

We may be getting pixelated, we may have a drought/flood, we may rescue the animals, we may stay inside until it passes or go outside, wade in a stream, pick up a stone. 

Donna Moylan, August, 2020

Thompson Giroux Gallery