SHEEP IN FIELD 

Editor: Okay, next up, we have Louisa Matthiasdottir's *SHEEP IN FIELD*, painted with oil on canvas. I find its somewhat blocky figures really captivating, giving it this dreamlike and slightly unsettling feeling. How do you read this piece? Curator: Dreamlike is spot on! It's like peering into a memory, fuzzy around the edges but intensely felt. The composition, right? That vibrant green field, those looming mountains... it feels like Iceland, her homeland, seen through the eyes of someone both intimately familiar and perhaps, a little bit estranged. That lone figure of the child... is she us? Editor: That’s interesting. The child *could* be a self-portrait of the artist. The color palette feels bold, the landscape feels very open, almost… intimidatingly so. The brushstrokes also make it feel somewhat unsettled. What do you make of that tension? Curator: That tension, it's the engine of the painting! See how she simplifies everything, almost to the point of abstraction? Yet, the emotion is so raw, so immediate. It makes you wonder, what are those sheep *really*? Are they just sheep, or stand-ins for something else – perhaps companionship, innocence, or even vulnerability? Do they perhaps give us something of an understanding of the state of mind of the person that’s there? Editor: That makes sense! I was so focused on the composition; I didn't think to read deeper into the symbology and context. Curator: And that's the joy of art, isn't it? There's always another layer waiting to be peeled back! What felt dreamlike to you, perhaps felt familiar or maybe even like a little secret that only you knew was there. It speaks to our experiences differently, doesn’t it? Editor: It definitely does! Thanks, I'm looking at it with a fresh pair of eyes now!