Lanzarote 1977

Curator: Mary Fedden’s “Lanzarote,” dating to 1977, is a landscape rendered with oils or watercolors depending on which source one refers to. Its visual language hints at modernism, wouldn't you say? Editor: My first impression is… stark beauty. I'm thinking about a sun-bleached earth. The colours are restrained. It's a landscape pared down to its essence, but one with a definite chill to it. I sense a strong geometrical organization lurking beneath its deceptively free style. Curator: Precisely. While representational, the simplification leans toward abstraction, playing with our learned ideas of what a landscape should depict and how the various symbols therein are expressed. Look at how the horizon is implied, yet indistinct. Editor: Those mountain forms echo a certain visual austerity; pyramids without aspiration. But the contrasting dark wash between the stark whites is evocative. Almost feels biblical—think Sinai. Curator: It could easily evoke a sacred or spiritual aura with its sparse arrangement, which is common of Fedden. Consider the white building on the lower right, rendered with near geometric perfection amidst the seemingly rugged terrain—perhaps symbolic of a place of refuge or reflection. Editor: Yes! It's both inviting and alienating—as if the artist herself, or even us as viewers, are perched on the edge of belonging and observation. Curator: Landscapes frequently act as projections of our internal state. Is Fedden, by reducing this Lanzarote to a near-abstract stage, exploring feelings of isolation or purity? Editor: Maybe both? It feels elemental, primal even. A quiet scream rendered with elegant restraint. Like staring at a dream just out of reach, something almost remembered from another life. It’s strangely gripping. Curator: And Fedden encourages that pull. It’s an invitation to imbue this landscape with your own narrative. Editor: Absolutely. Each viewer arrives as a new character entering the same drama. Lanzarote remains a stage. Curator: A potent exercise, given the inherent symbolic power of landscape art to reflect human experience. Thank you for your time and perspectives! Editor: My pleasure, until the next blank canvas calls.