Becky Knold's paintings are hard to describe. They're nothing and they're everything. They're abstract, minimalist, colorful but in a subdued way. They're atmospheric color-field paintings with barely discernable forms if any, and no subject matter whatsoever; yet they are clearly landscapes and paintings of buildings. They are all about textures on monochromatic surfaces, but there is no tactile texture at all - meaning there is no heavy build-up of paint on the surface, no gouging or scraping, even though they look like they contain all of that. Or they look like they have been spray painted or dipped in liquid paint of closely related hues and allowed to dry. In some of them there are occasional swipes of paint that look to have been done with a flat, hard instrument with precise and hard edges where the stroke ends. Such strokes provide the closest thing to solid form in some of her paintings.

Read Alec Clayton's full review on "Atmosphere, Land and Water" in the Music & Culture section.

"ATMOSPHERE, LAND AND WATER," noon to 6 p.m. Thursday-Sunday, through March 16, Salon Refu, 114 Capitol Way N., Olympia, 360.280.3540