Terrell James’ Field Studies Series brings her color practice into conversation with the tradition of field study as practiced by Claude Lorraine (1600-82), and the Barbizon painters Camille Corot (1796-1879) and Jules Dupre (1811-89). Using visual phenomena to organize compositions had led them to rely on effects of hue, tone and value, opacity and luminosity that they improvised on their palettes. Articulating landscape through painterly qualities, rather than objective depiction, they foregrounded the permeable boundaries between color, form and emotion. James’ similar interest in that porosity, and her fascination with the figures appearing spontaneously on her palettes inspired a series of related small-scale works. Continuing into the present, Field Studies now comprises an encyclopedia of form-color relations in more than 800 discrete pieces.
— Excerpt from 4 Paintings by Cameron M Armstrong (F.K.Hamiltion Editions, 2024)