Pousette-Dart's shaped paintings are notable for their distinctive blend of formal and poetic elements. Her work is influenced by a wide range of sources, including Islamic, Mozarabic, and Catalonian art, Chinese landscape paintings and calligraphy, Mayan and American Indian art, and the natural landscape. Each painting adopts a unique form, featuring a dynamic balance between expansion and constraint. The painted contours within these forms add complexity, sometimes mirroring the canvas's edges and other times defying them. These spatial considerations began in the 1970s when Pousette-Dart was in New Mexico, inspired by its vast, open spaces. Although her paintings might be labeled as "abstract," they are deeply connected to a tangible sense of space. The specific shapes of her paintings are arrived at intuitively and evoke the spatially ambiguous qualities of visual perception set within the parameters of one’s field of vision and the larger overarching paradigm of the earth’s curvature. The suggestive vocabulary of lines and forms within the works is in dynamic dialogue with the paintings’ exterior shape creating a spatial continuum suffused with a quality of light reminiscent of nature.

Pousette-Dart's shaped paintings are notable for their distinctive blend of formal and poetic elements. Her work is influenced by a wide range of sources, including Islamic, Mozarabic, and Catalonian art, Chinese landscape paintings and calligraphy, Mayan and American Indian art, and the natural landscape. Each painting adopts a unique form, featuring a dynamic balance between expansion and constraint. The painted contours within these forms add complexity, sometimes mirroring the canvas's edges and other times defying them. These spatial considerations began in the 1970s when Pousette-Dart was in New Mexico, inspired by its vast, open spaces. Although her paintings might be labeled as "abstract," they are deeply connected to a tangible sense of space. The specific shapes of her paintings are arrived at intuitively and evoke the spatially ambiguous qualities of visual perception set within the parameters of one’s field of vision and the larger overarching paradigm of the earth’s curvature. The suggestive vocabulary of lines and forms within the works is in dynamic dialogue with the paintings’ exterior shape creating a spatial continuum suffused with a quality of light reminiscent of nature.

Pousette-Dart's shaped paintings are notable for their distinctive blend of formal and poetic elements. Her work is influenced by a wide range of sources, including Islamic, Mozarabic, and Catalonian art, Chinese landscape paintings and calligraphy, Mayan and American Indian art, and the natural landscape. Each painting adopts a unique form, featuring a dynamic balance between expansion and constraint. The painted contours within these forms add complexity, sometimes mirroring the canvas's edges and other times defying them. These spatial considerations began in the 1970s when Pousette-Dart was in New Mexico, inspired by its vast, open spaces. Although her paintings might be labeled as "abstract," they are deeply connected to a tangible sense of space. The specific shapes of her paintings are arrived at intuitively and evoke the spatially ambiguous qualities of visual perception set within the parameters of one’s field of vision and the larger overarching paradigm of the earth’s curvature. The suggestive vocabulary of lines and forms within the works is in dynamic dialogue with the paintings’ exterior shape creating a spatial continuum suffused with a quality of light reminiscent of nature.

Pousette-Dart's shaped paintings are notable for their distinctive blend of formal and poetic elements. Her work is influenced by a wide range of sources, including Islamic, Mozarabic, and Catalonian art, Chinese landscape paintings and calligraphy, Mayan and American Indian art, and the natural landscape. Each painting adopts a unique form, featuring a dynamic balance between expansion and constraint. The painted contours within these forms add complexity, sometimes mirroring the canvas's edges and other times defying them. These spatial considerations began in the 1970s when Pousette-Dart was in New Mexico, inspired by its vast, open spaces. Although her paintings might be labeled as "abstract," they are deeply connected to a tangible sense of space. The specific shapes of her paintings are arrived at intuitively and evoke the spatially ambiguous qualities of visual perception set within the parameters of one’s field of vision and the larger overarching paradigm of the earth’s curvature. The suggestive vocabulary of lines and forms within the works is in dynamic dialogue with the paintings’ exterior shape creating a spatial continuum suffused with a quality of light reminiscent of nature.