Last Light

A few months ago, my friend Diana brought me to a pond in Berlin MA.

When the snow fell, I returned, and took a long walk there by myself.

Something pulled me to this place where the bend in the path curves inward - the kind of curve that draws you into a painting before you consciously decide to enter into it.

I fell in love with those trees on the right, leaning outward toward the open sky contrasting the lake covered in a blanket of soft snow.

It was actually a cloudy day when I first arrived and I didn’t think, intellectually, that this location would make a great painting. But my intuition guided me, and I listened...

I returned many times over the next six weeks, sometimes in truly unforgiving 15ºF temperatures. But as the days passed, the sun came out more and more, warming my bones and illuminating the sky, revealing the true majesty of the place I had chosen.

The setting sun displayed the richness of its prismatic hues upon the snow and lit up the whole scene.

"Last Light"

16 x 20 inches. Oil on Linen

The painting evolved as it always does, organically, in conversation with what was actually there.

The hardest part to achieve was something simple and almost impossible: to make the sun appear as the brightest spot on the canvas - even surrounded by snow, which catches and reflects light in every direction.

Nature, for me, is an unreachable ideal. Being in it, really in it… cold and awake and paying attention, is what makes the painting possible.

I could not make these paintings from photographs, from memory, or from the studio.

The trees and the light and the cold and the silence are not the subject of the painting. They are its source.

I am just there to get out of the way, and receive.

These paintings never feel like something I made but something I was willing to show up and be open enough, dedicated enough, and sensitive enough to receive.

That is why each and every painting takes so long to craft. I could call it done much sooner, but I keep returning until I genuinely cannot see how to make it more true. Nature shows me, I am just doing my best to listen.

This new painting, “Last Light” is 16 x 20 inches, oil on traditionally prepared herringbone linen canvas. Soft, and inviting, and gently glowing from within.

It is priced at $5,000 . If it's meant to find a home with you, you'll know.

To claim it, simply send me an email ([email protected]) or reach me at 508-561-9620.

I hope that “Last Light” brings brilliance, warmth, and illumination to your world.

Sincerely,

Dustin Neece

P.S. — If you'd like to see how "Last Light" evolved from a rough sketch to its final form, I documented the entire journey on my Instagram. Every stage, every layer, every change — it's all there.

I saved it all in a story highlight, and in my most recent carousel post: 

👉🏻 Last Light story highlight on my Instagram profile

👉🏻 Latest carousel post with process images