The Gospel 

Curator: Here we have "The Gospel" by Sirak Skitnik. Painted in watercolor, it has a dreamlike quality. Editor: My initial impression is of stillness. A kind of profound, watchful silence permeates this scene. What about you? Curator: The composition feels like a tapestry, woven with figures almost emerging from the landscape itself. The colors—blues and browns mostly—feel like memories. I imagine Skitnik carefully layering the watercolor to create such depth. Editor: The rendering of figures suggests a link to production methods. This type of representation resembles a tapestry, pointing towards modes of manufacture that mirror folk art rather than, say, the highly specialized skills often valued in painting. Curator: Yes! There’s something primal about it. The figures seem connected to the earth. One almost fades into the trees themselves; her long hair morphing into the landscape, the other watching over like some mystical saint. The entire work vibrates between worlds—is this a portrait, a landscape, or an emblem? It is an ethereal glimpse into a soulful vision. Editor: Exactly. Even the watercolors serve to decentralize the art object as commodity. Here's a relatively accessible material often considered craft supply—a common component across schools, nurseries, homes. It makes you rethink distinctions of art/craft. Curator: This is all making me think about our human yearning for stories and connection to the land. How all the different applications are stories too! Editor: True. In Skitnik's creation there, "The Gospel" serves both as iconographic declaration and artifact, made possible through collective imaginaries and broadly distributed production means. It moves between being itself. Curator: It definitely has set the tone of something important today. A simple but compelling gospel of creative agency through this medium! Editor: I agree—it's a humble demonstration, executed democratically with such rich implications.