The Eternal Cycles could be thought of as a game of time; death and rebirth, seasons, and
day into night, night into day.  And in these passages of time, there are no sudden, sharp
boundary marks, but instead a slow gradual change.  So gradual that sometimes we are not
even aware that something is happening.
The Eternal cycles could be thought of a game of time.


Light into dark, night into day is the basic cycle of life.  The observation of the changing
light of day and night has been a personal study and a shared experience.  The changing
light of day and night are my constant companions.
Light into dark, night into day is the basic cycle of life.


I am first aware of the morning light, as I observe the sun rising over Taos Mountain; the
colors are many shades of grey, pink, yellow and sometimes washed in gold and silver.
Later in the studio, I watch the light flow into my space; silently it climbs up on my
drawing table.  I pull an easel to block its intensity. I shield my drawing table from the
piercing light.  I continue to work.  Then in the afternoon the light again crawls upon my
drawing table, approaching from behind, over my shoulder; it jumps on the surface where I
am working and it must be shaded from the light’s brilliance that is blinding.
I spend each day observing the light.


“Thomas Merton was convinced that if you let the hours of the day saturate you, and you gave them time, something would happen.”
“If you let the hours of the day saturate you, and you give them time, something will happen.”

The final statement becomes clear by preceiving the simple forms, one after another, ...time disappears.

Taos-based artist, Annell Livingston creates paintings with a deeply meditative, spiritual quality. Her paintings, like life itself, are basically the same: square paintings (or long rectangular paintings) of small, ordered grids of squares, triangles, and unexpected shapes. The patterns vary little — whether executed in encaustic on board or canvas, acrylic on oriental paper, or gouache on paper. All the while, they quietly reflect the rhythm of the changing light in the artist’s Taos, New Mexico studio.

The works are a visual response to the artist’s reflections on day and night, the sameness, the change and the inevitability of their progressions. They put in mind the works of Agnes Martin, but they obviously are done free-hand, unlike Martin’s penciled-straight edge-perfect stripes, and with the small imperceptible variations from square to square lays a huge difference. Each square, with each visible stroke is a kind of prayer. In her statement the artist quotes the famous Rapist (Trappist) monk Thomas Merton: “If you let the hours of the day saturate you, and you give them time, something would happen…”