The artist's landscapes frequently place the observer squarely within the midst of an untamed wilderness, in the deadfall of roots and tree trunks, the chaos of fallen rocks, a great depth of snow, or the center of a great swamp. Some indirectly represent the destructive forces of history, as seen in a fairly literal view of Mount Baker in From Here to Eternity, with its overall pink ground colour; or the startling enameled hues of the large Magenta Fire. As a consequence of witnessing injustice and cruelty, he had a penchant for painting flames. His landscapes often contain signs or remains of human dwellings: forgotten logging camps, a prospector's shack, derelict habitations. Many paintings demonstrate his love of nature, illustrated by Above the Yalakom, with its fluid design of trees and slopes. In 1967, he created a six by nine foot mural, a depiction of a waterfall cascading from a mountain lake, for the Langley Evangelical Free Church. In Woods' view, Hessay drew on his childhood learning steeped in the Bible, and the mural reinterprets Mount Lebanon, the Sea of Galilee, and the River Jordan in a Canadian context. His last painting, the peaceful landscape Break of Day, completed in 1977, is atypical among those of his final decade, with its use of soft harmonies and rounded contours.