OVERVIEW

Contemporary Vistas – Cynthia Daignault: Light Atlas is an immersive installation by award-winning artist Cynthia Daignault, inspired by Thomas Cole (1801-1848), of 360 landscape paintings, 8×10 inches each, created on a road trip across the United States. Light Atlas functions as a portrait of the land that Cynthia Daignault encountered on a nine-month road trip in 2014, following the outer perimeter of the contiguous United States. Reflecting on the numerous male artists that had famously taken cross-country trips in the 19th and 20th centuries in the name of their art, she questioned the relative absence of women undertaking similar creative adventures from dominant historical narratives. She stopped about every 25 miles, capturing the view from her truck window with a sketch or a photograph.

The exhibition is presented in the reconstructed 1846 New Studio building, designed by Thomas Cole. The artwork is being loaned by the Art Bridges Collection. The exhibition is part of the broader 2026 initiativeThomas Cole: Painting the Nature of America, celebrating the anniversary of America at the home of American landscape.

PRESS RELEASE

“This national historic site, where Thomas Cole resided and worked from his marriage until his death, calls on visitors to reflect on the Hudson River School movement and its persisting influence…contemporary painter Cynthia Daignault presents 360 paintings in her series Light Atlas (2016), each documenting the sites and scenes from a cross-country road trip.”—Hyperallergic

Cynthia Daignault, Light Atlas, 2014-2017, oil on linen, 360 canvases, each 8 x 10 in. Art Bridges Collection.

Programming

INSTALLATION VIEWS

Thomas Cole: Painting the Nature of America at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site is supported by The National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.

Made possible in part by Hickory Foundation; With public funds from the Greene County Legislature through the Greene County Cultural Fund, administered in Greene County by CREATE Council on the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; Jennifer Krieger and Eric Siegel; National Trust Insurance, LLC; Art Bridges; Maurice D. Hinchey Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area; The Tryon Family Foundation; Anne and Fred Osborn III / The EASTER Foundation; Bank of Greene County Charitable Fund; Columbia Memorial Health; BST & Co. CPAs, LLP; and Eli Wilner & Company.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Photography by Peter Aaron/OTTO