Lake Light

Place

A photograph of a mostly dry lakebed. Brown land with light reflecting off it covers the bottom third of the picture, with hazy orange and tan sections of higher land and sky in the background.

Lonely (Explored), Lonely tree in the middle of the seasonal Eyasi Lake, on the floor of the Great Rift Valley, Tanzania, 2012. © Benjamin GS

April Gornik’s landscape paintings are based both on real places and imagined views. She painted Lake Light after traveling to Namibia and Tanzania. Because the lake of this painting’s title is either dried up or not in view, Gornik may have been inspired by the seasonal Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, which can dramatically dry up during the summer dry season.