Light Center, 1947–48

Narrator: In the 1940s, Pelton often painted circles and ovals—symbols of infinity, with no beginning and no end.

Suzanne Hudson: Often they're situated within fields of light that appear as almost diaphanous veils where you see the interpenetration of different layers.

Narrator: Art historian Suzanne Hudson.

Suzanne Hudson: And I think in these, you see her exploring not only the layering of oil and it's transparency and in some cases even translucency, but also registering the effect of light. And, at this point in her career, she's been living already for over a decade in Cathedral City and it's in the desert nestled against mountains, but at night it is an incredibly clear panorama.

I imagine her in that space and being infinitely interested in the passage of light, and the way that the passage of light registers time, both through the day but also through the night.

And I think there's a registration here of almost a sense of flickering. You get the sense of light coming through from behind or from some deep interior space within the picture plane. And I think perhaps it's not an especially far stretch to imagine this as becoming deeply symbolic for her, with ideas of illumination as forms of spiritual transcendence and light imaging—something that is both ever present but mercurial, and always in the process of being transformed.