Ridge 1999

Curator: Carol Rhodes' "Ridge" presents a landscape that's both familiar and unsettling, painted on a modestly sized support of roughly 43 by 51 centimeters. Editor: It feels like a dreamscape, or maybe a memory fading into the distance. The muted palette creates this sense of quietude. Curator: Rhodes often depicted these liminal spaces – peripheries and edges – perhaps to critique the impact of industrial development on our environment. Editor: There's a detachment, almost clinical. I wonder if it’s less a critique, and more a meditation on our relationship with constructed landscapes. Curator: Interesting point. The aerial perspective seems to suggest a power dynamic, the human gaze surveying and shaping the land. Editor: It also evokes this peculiar sense of freedom, of being unmoored from the land itself. It’s beautiful in its quiet, haunting way. Curator: Rhodes' ability to transform the mundane into something ethereal remains potent, inviting reflection on humanity's imprint. Editor: Yes, it's a tenderly strange painting that, now that I see it, definitely stays with you.