Shadow on Briggs Meadow, 1981, is one of Welliver’s quintessential paintings, where abstract structure, aggressive surface, and arbitrary colour come together in a tour de force of abstraction without diminishing the natural picturesque quality of the scenery. It is at once joyous and sensual in its use of application of colour… Welliver’s attitude towards colour is decidedly arbitrary; at the outset of a work he has no “color game plan.” As Welliver works down the canvas… “the lower colors change to adjust to what has happened up top.” Once he’s worked through an area, he never goes back to change it. –Frank H. Goodyear, Jr.