Gold and Martinis 2017

Editor: Carrie Graber's "Gold and Martinis," painted in 2017 using acrylic paint, strikes me as a distinctly contemporary take on leisure. The figure almost melts into the modernist architecture. What symbols and references stand out to you? Curator: Immediately, the color gold demands our attention. What does gold typically signify in art history and cultural memory? Consider Byzantine icons, for example, and its associations with divinity, value, and even artificiality. Does the choice of “gold” in the title lead your reading of the overall scene? Editor: That’s fascinating! I immediately think about wealth, but almost a superficial, status-driven kind of wealth…not necessarily spiritual. What about the martini? It feels so loaded! Curator: Precisely. Martinis themselves evoke a certain cultural weight—sophistication, mid-century elegance, but also perhaps a hint of emptiness or escapism, given the era of this kind of "golden" modernism that it harkens to. Consider too the broader history of drinks in painting, from Bacchus onward. What is this specific drink communicating within the context of the scene and the figure’s pose? Editor: It almost feels like a contemporary re-imagining of classic themes – beauty, leisure, wealth – viewed through a somewhat critical, perhaps even melancholic, lens. The gold could then point to a gilded cage effect. Curator: Indeed! And note how the sharp geometric lines of the architecture, the almost artificial greenery, and the solitary figure amplify this interpretation. It uses familiar symbols to invite us to reflect on how these concepts persist and shift in contemporary culture. Editor: That makes perfect sense. I didn’t see all the cultural layers at first, but now it feels much deeper. Thanks!