These portrait-like interior scenes, painted with precision yet retaining loose, fluid brushstrokes, have a dual impact on the viewer: they are descriptive portraits of a specific time and place, yet they evoke a sense of nostalgia, as if the viewer has encountered the scene before.

Anderson has worked in the plein air tradition for over twenty years, and approaches his interior and still life compositions in the same manner. Always painting from life, he begins and finishes his paintings on location, sometimes returning to the same place or scene at the same time over several days. He says his choice in subject matter is “almost unconscious.” He explains: “I usually catch a pattern of lights and darks out of the corner of my eye that appeals to me, and then I try to paint it. Hopefully my paintings are an honest and simple response to the beauty I see in the world.”