Mattie Lou O’Kelley’s oil painting, Yard Sale, was finished in 1979 and measures twenty-eight inches by forty inches. It is part of the permanent collection at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. The painting details a scene in which a rural yard sale is taking place. Mattie Lou O’Kelly’s painting depicts an idealized moment of life through her use of stylization and vivid colors.
The background of O’Kelly’s painting is bordered by light yellow-green tree tops against a cloudy, hazy blue sky. The puffy cotton-like clouds are a creamy yellow topped with splashes of red. In the middle, the flowering branches of a mighty tree pierce through the sky to the top of the canvas, its solid red and brown structures contrast the almost blurry sky. The middle ground is dotted with smaller flowering trees that lead into the distance, away from the viewer. On the left, a Colonial style yellow brick house rests with its front…show more content… Those focal points are signified by her use of light and color. Light in this painting comes from one source; sunlight behind the tree line in the background. The light peeks out from atop the trees far behind it, creating an illuminated backdrop for the massive flowering tree, causing the buildings to cast faint shadows toward the foreground. The lack of strong, realistic shadows provides a shimmery, almost cheery tone to the painting. Apart from light, O’Kelly employs dramatic, warm colors throughout her painting. Her choice of colors gives the work an air of stylization because the colors are too vivid to be naturalistic. As described earlier, O’Kelly’s oil painting uses many shades of green and blue for her landscape and sky, but her figures display the widest range of colors in their outfits. Lemon yellow, dark blue, sherbert orange, and pastel pink are only a sampling of the clothing worn by O’Kelly’s