Silver Lining 2017

Curator: Rose Freymuth-Frazier's "Silver Lining," created in 2017 using oil paint in the plein-air style, captures a landscape under a dramatic sky. The impasto technique lends a tactile quality, doesn't it? Editor: Absolutely, the sky evokes a powerful emotional resonance for me. The churning dark clouds create this tension with the illuminated blue patch above. It’s as though hope, or a divine presence even, is breaking through. Curator: Fascinating to consider that interplay between darkness and light. When I look, I see the labor involved – the artist physically present, battling the elements perhaps, layering paint to capture a fleeting atmospheric moment. You can almost feel the wind and dampness. Editor: It's the Romanticism inherent in the subject. These turbulent skies, common in Romantic painting, reflect inner emotional turmoil or, perhaps, humanity's smallness in the face of nature's grandeur. Does the location matter, or is it universal? Curator: The universality, I think, comes from the artist's dedication to documenting a specific location through the labor of close observation. The choice of materials too – oil paint, favored for its ability to capture light and atmosphere – links the process intimately with the result. What kind of canvas and brushes, do you imagine, facilitated this effect? Editor: Right, so each brushstroke contributes to an understanding. And, the trees and reflecting pool—are those meant to symbolize purity or clarity in opposition to the turbulent sky, or does that bring too much intentionality to what might be purely intuitive? Curator: Well, by selecting and framing the view as she does, Freymuth-Frazier is intervening. Her subjective experience impacts what she paints, transforming the landscape. But the focus remains grounded in that lived, physical interaction. Editor: Still, isn't that relationship an enduring artistic challenge? Reconciling our interior worlds with what we observe outside ourselves, trying to make meaning of external chaos… it certainly offers a rich tableau here, don’t you think? Curator: I think examining its creation reveals far more about how we consume such ideas in the art. Editor: True, it's all interwoven; a captivating expression that certainly bears further contemplation.