The title of Elizabeth Hazan's current show, Under the Sun, is perfect, for walking into Hesse Flatow Gallery is walking into a burst of sun light made palpable through the glory of color. Apparently expressing childhood memories of summers spent among Eastern Long Island’s pristine farmlands and waterfront shores, Hazen has suggested her love of these idyllic worlds, of wandering, being free, and discovering the beginnings of the color, shape and form that would inform her mature work. Loopy outlines clearly delineate trees, water and other natural forms, and clearly provide a joyful arabesque of remembered sensations throughout each painting, but it is the color that sings the loudest. These are incredibly smart paintings, where color chords harmonize, as they shift and then recreate balance, with a perfect-pitch of give/take between individual color notes within the chords. For instance, in Field #148, the focus of the painting is created by strong tonal and chromatic contrasts in the color chord on the left, set against subdued, low-contrast versions of the same hues on the right, but then a powerful orange and dark violet jump in, to rebalance the weight on right and save this area from disappearing, while also speaking directly to the unsaturated orange and dark yellow-orange on the left. The chord then mutates again, and again, and again, as it continues to other parts of the painting. Titles, like Glade, Nightshade, Floodtide and Vista, suggest each painting is of a particular place, a particular tree, or particular time of day, but it is the color, always the color, the color nuances within the color groups of each painting that tell the true story, and that are fascinating to explore as we journey throughout the tightly woven painted harmonies of Elizabeth Hazan.