YIELD presents a body of work created in response to landscape; not as direct representation, but as an accumulation of observation, attention, and time spent looking. The title suggests both slowing down and giving attention to what is easily overlooked: elements of a place that exist quietly rather than announce themselves.

These paintings emerge from an interest in the subtle structures of the landscape, the repeated forms, shifting color relationships, and small visual moments that often recede into the background. Through repetition, layering, and accumulation, shapes begin to leave traces of themselves, creating a sense of residue: evidence of looking, movement, memory, and return.

Rather than documenting a specific location, YIELD considers landscape as an experience of attention, noticing the subtle relationships already present within it.

Through repeated shapes, layered marks, and shifting color relationships, the work explores how visual information accumulates over time. Repetition creates residue: traces that remain, overlap, and alter what comes next. 

ABOUT JENNY MCGEE DOUGHERTY

Jenny McGee Dougherty is a Portland based visual artist and educator working across painting, surface design, textiles, and murals. Through layered forms and repeated gestures, her work investigates relationships between color, shape, and texture, exploring how repetition creates residue and how natural processes of growth and decay become embedded in the visual language of everyday life. Rooted in attentive observation of landscape and environment, her practice reflects an interest in accumulation, contextualization, and subtle shifts over time.

Jenny is the Director of Artists at Work at Maine College of Art & Design, and her work has been exhibited nationally, including at the Portland Museum of Art and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art.

Image: Jenny McGee Dougherty, Pillars (detail), gouache and latex on wood panel, 20 x 30 in, 2025