Kelly Saxton, Weeds on view September 7-29.

BY BRIANA MILLER

New paintings by Portland-based artist Kelly Saxton exude a bewitching lushness. With titles like “Weed Ball” and “Looking out my back door at weeds,” they get to the heart of Saxton’s practice of closely examining the near-at-hand natural world. Works like “Crocosmia,” an abstracted close-up of the flowering plant, is almost gothic in its deep greenness cut with a shot of vermillion. Saxton’s larger canvases will be paired with new work from her bark series. In these, layered mixed-media panes with carefully built-up then degraded surfaces reveal undercoats of rust, ochre, blue and lichen green and give the sensation of being within an eyeball’s distance of their namesake.

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Bark Leaf, 2018. Mixed media, 13 x 10.”