Painting, New Hope, United States by Robert Erickson

One crooked line from top to bottom. Hope, apparently, looks like this.

New Hope is a painting by Robert Erickson of the United States, in oil and cold wax, signed, titled and dated on the back, 2000. The surface is raked with fine horizontal lines, like coarse cloth in a dun, sandy color. Spare abstract paintings like this are meant for long looking in homes and galleries, with the title as the only hint. A thin dark line wavers down the center, widening near the middle and fading toward the top. A narrow black edge contains it all. Twenty-six inches wide and 80 high.

Its title makes no promises about what is on the other side.