Giant Dipper, Santa Cruz Boardwalk 2021

Curator: We're looking at Carrie Graber’s 2021 painting, “Giant Dipper, Santa Cruz Boardwalk,” a radiant scene rendered in a contemporary figurative style with elements of plein-air painting. Editor: Whoa. It just throws me right back to those dizzying summer days! You know, that anticipation, the sun in your eyes, the feeling you might just fly right out of the damn car. There’s such kinetic energy here, I almost feel motion sickness just looking at it. Curator: The dynamic composition certainly evokes that visceral response. Note how the artist positions the viewer within the roller coaster itself. The converging lines of the structure create a sense of forced perspective. Furthermore, the vibrant analogous hues serve to amplify the sensation. Editor: Totally. It's not just about the coaster, though, right? It's about that sliver of freedom and joy. I love how she's got the palm trees haloed by the sun. It makes the mundane – waiting in line, getting jerked around on that rickety thing – feel kind of…mythical. Curator: I agree that the elevated point of view encourages us to engage more broadly with the underlying geometries as we try to make visual sense of our location in space. Furthermore, Graber is clearly experimenting with a softened natural light to affect the image. Notice the skillful modulation of color temperature across the work? Editor: Yeah, it’s dreamy, almost nostalgic, yet the hard edges of the ride contrast so strongly with the organic elements that I wonder if she meant something by it, or is it simply part of her style? It kind of reminds me how you see old and new melding so effortlessly here in California. It gives me pause. Curator: These seemingly oppositional arrangements—a juxtaposition of manmade structures amid natural settings, if you will—further illustrate Graber's engagement with the formal and aesthetic challenges inherent in a figurative painting concerned primarily with space, tone, color, and texture. Editor: Well, that was quite a ride. Seeing something so familiar in a completely different context forces you to reflect on the experience in entirely new ways. Curator: Indeed. Perhaps this work encourages viewers to consider our role in shaping and being shaped by, our environment, and by visual design.