Yana Bystrova and Paula Henderson present two varying pathways for approaching abstraction in painting. Bystrova seeks answers to larger philosophical questions about how cultural context and perceptions of reality shape our understanding of the world we live in. As a Ukrainian artist living in Paris for almost three decades, she is keenly aware of the impact of the surrounding environment and, to that end, offers a ‘sampling’ – of landscapes, nature, organic elements using the traditional practice of en plein-air painting outdoors. Their immediate, fresh, less calculated expression could be said to both embrace the phenomenon of ambiguity, and offer a mechanism for overcoming it, by focusing on the painting’s formal elements.