Summer Flowers, 24" x 36"

See more paintings at the Glorious Brushstrokes Collection.

In Summer Flowers, James Nowak extends his Glorious Brushstrokes Collection with a composition that exudes vitality, warmth, and a celebration of nature’s fleeting beauty. Whereas some of his works harness tension and electricity, Summer Flowers radiates openness and renewal. The canvas brims with bold, luminous strokes of yellow, green, teal, red, and blue, translating the essence of a vibrant summer garden into pure abstraction. The piece is less a literal depiction of flowers and more an evocation of their spirit—joyful, untamed, and full of energy.

Nowak’s visual language relies on gestural brushwork, and here the strokes appear looser and more buoyant than in his other works. Sweeps of teal and blue suggest foliage and depth, while bright yellow dominates as bursts of light and petals. Red accents punctuate the composition like blossoms breaking through greenery, and the blues anchor the piece with cooling undertones. The placement of these strokes across a bright white background creates a rhythmic flow, echoing both the randomness and harmony of a summer meadow.

Unlike more angular or intersecting works, Summer Flowers embraces curved, feathered edges that soften the composition. The result is a sense of growth and natural unfolding—strokes expand outward rather than colliding, offering a visual metaphor for organic flourishing.

The painting resonates with themes of renewal, joy, and ephemerality. Just as summer flowers bloom with brilliance but fade quickly, Nowak captures both their intensity and transience. The energetic brushstrokes embody the fullness of life in its prime, while the openness of the white space reminds the viewer of impermanence—the inevitability of change in cycles of nature.

The vibrancy of the palette speaks to the sensory overload of summer: golden light, lush foliage, the burst of blossoms. This sensory excess is not controlled but rather celebrated, mirroring nature’s tendency to overwhelm with abundance.

Critically, Summer Flowers functions as a meditation on the cycles of beauty and vitality. It speaks to the human impulse to preserve fleeting experiences in art—the way we try to hold onto summer even as it slips away. The boldness of the colors may also reflect an insistence on joy, an almost defiant affirmation of life in the face of impermanence.

Unlike Electricity, which revels in tension and energy, Summer Flowers offers a more harmonious vision. The strokes, while dynamic, do not clash but complement one another, echoing the balance found in natural ecosystems. This sense of equilibrium between chaos and order positions the work as both energetic and contemplative.

James Nowak’s Summer Flowers is an ode to vitality, abundance, and the fleeting beauty of nature. Through its gestural energy, luminous colors, and rhythmic openness, the painting transcends representation to capture the spirit of summer itself. As part of the Glorious Brushstrokes Collection, it stands as a joyful counterpart to his more tension-driven works, revealing Nowak’s range and his capacity to channel both electricity and serenity into abstraction.