Bloom of Stillness: Lake George Reflection

Bloom of Stillness is a poetic reinterpretation of Georgia O’Keeffe’s  Lake George Reflection , reimagined through a dreamlike floral language that dissolves the boundary between water, petal, and atmosphere. Here, the serene horizontality of the lake, once anchored in realism, is reborn as a surreal plane of liquid color and blooming form. The line of reflection—once a quiet divider between sky and land—is now a living pulse, rippling through layers of flower-soft light. As in O’Keeffe’s original painting, which transformed the physical contours of Lake George into meditative abstraction, this reconstruction magnifies stillness until it becomes emotional landscape—where petals drift like memories and colors ripple with feeling. 

The core geometry of the scene remains O’Keeffe’s—an elongated horizon stretching from foreground to infinite distance—but that line is softened, made organic, and embedded in an ever-blooming surrealism. The lake’s mirrored edge becomes the center of the composition, but its surface is no longer water—it is liquid glass, rippling with petals and light. Above it, a surreal sky dissolves into blooming orchids and glowing purples, their forms more felt than seen, like thoughts brushing against the edge of waking. 

The surrounding petals emerge in thick clusters of pinks, plums, and soft magentas—rosy-hued memories suspended in the breath of dawn. These blooms do not lie still. Instead, they move, curl, and unfurl around the reflective lake, suggesting that emotion, like water, is never truly still. Among them, hints of cherry blossom forms ripple downward into the mirrored surface, their reflections blurred like fading recollections. 

The color palette of this work unfolds slowly, like sunrise blooming through silence. In the foreground, pale peony pinks open gently across the water’s surface, merging with soft baby blues and water-washed lavenders. These colors suggest peace and introspection—tones of healing and internal quiet. They evoke the liminal space between thought and nature, where the reflection becomes not a physical thing, but a mental state. Around the horizon, deeper purples and indigos gather, symbols of mystery, transition, and evening. They invite the viewer not only to see the scene but to dissolve into it. 

Floating above this mirrored lake, petals of deeper magenta and orchid burn softly against the cool background, offering tension—a pulse of life within serenity. Their richer reds speak of longing, of the emotional shadows that swirl beneath calm surfaces. These are not jarring or intrusive, but necessary—they give depth to the otherwise tranquil palette. Like Georgia O’Keeffe’s own emotional relationship with Lake George—her retreat, her private world—these flowers offer subtle revelations about the beauty of holding both peace and longing in the same space. 

Hints of emerald green curve along the reflective spine, dotting the lake’s edge like stepping stones of thought. These greens, saturated and luminous, connect back to the natural roots of O’Keeffe’s original inspiration—the land, the forested ridges, the life that swelled around the lake. Here, they are softer, more stylized, like metaphors for memory or renewal. They suggest not foliage, but feeling: the moment one breathes in, the scent of leaves after rain. 

At the topmost edge of the composition, a surreal bloom of peach-toned clouds seems to emerge from the horizon like a rising thought. These clouds, painted in barely-there pinks, creams, and warm lavenders, form a conceptual sky—a sky that is both blooming and dissolving. It is O’Keeffe’s horizon, but untethered from realism. It is the horizon of memory, of calm, of dreams. 

Throughout the piece, the horizon line—once a hard architectural anchor in O’Keeffe’s landscapes—is transformed into a soft thread of connection. It does not divide the scene; it unites it. It is the line of reflection that binds above and below, sky and water, flower and thought. There is no “real” and “reflected” here. There is only the cycle of becoming—what blooms above dissolves below, and what floats beneath emerges again as vision. 

In creating  Bloom of Stillness , I sought to honor O’Keeffe’s reverence for nature’s geometry while embracing the emotional abstraction that pulses beneath her quietest works. Lake George was her escape, her sanctuary, her space for introspection. This reinterpretation renders that space as a psychological lake—a blooming mirror of self. There is no figure in this landscape, but the self is everywhere: in the curve of the petals, the softness of the light, the suggestion of breath moving across still water. 

This image is not a painting of a place—it is the spirit of a place, held within emotion, color, and memory. It is O’Keeffe’s retreat reborn as a surreal reflection of the heart, where flowers bloom from silence and light stretches long into the soul.