Untitled 2017

Curator: Let’s turn our attention to this untitled piece from 2017 by Lucy Ivanova. A lovely composition made with acrylic paint. What are your immediate thoughts? Editor: It's evocative, isn’t it? A feeling of beach and almost forgotten moments. Sort of dreamy but with these jolts of brighter colors to ground it. Like a memory fighting to be clear. Curator: Interesting you say that, because I am interested in the surface, the material qualities here. The brushstrokes are visibly loaded with paint, aren’t they? Think about the process. The layering suggests multiple sittings, a real engagement with the act of painting itself. Editor: Absolutely. You can almost smell the sea air, even though it's, technically speaking, a landscape of the mind more than a real vista. See those little palms near the lower edge – that's not Barbados; that's someone's daydream about Barbados. Curator: Which really comes to her contemporary Abstract-Expressionist style. It's pushing against those traditional boundaries of what we expect from figuration while drawing on those landscape elements. What kind of exchange of materials can occur if an idea manifests like this one? Editor: I think you're right about those layers. All of that build up creates this density that captures the feeling of, well, time. Of fleeting days on the beach. It does something powerful because, while you said 'multiple sittings,' the product of those sittings feel like something quick, in passing. Curator: Yes, consider that material weight as a signifier of value, the literal layering of capital investment into production! I appreciate how that adds another dimension to that ephemeral mood. Editor: Ha! I love that you always find the commodity! Curator: I always consider materiality, what can I say? Editor: A skill for sure. But to bring us back from your interesting material readings, let me reiterate that the color composition here reminds me of how summer tastes after years have gone by. Curator: A solid interpretation, indeed! Well, this has certainly given me a new appreciation for Ivanova's manipulation of materiality. Editor: And perhaps, given our analysis, the visitor will get a clearer feel for the beach Ivanova conjures.