Above and Below 2013

Editor: Gregg Renfrow's "Above and Below," painted in 2013 using acrylic paint and stain, immediately pulls me into a sort of aquatic abyss. The colors fade from light gray to deep navy, like sunlight disappearing into the ocean's depths. It feels vast and a little…melancholy? What do you make of it? Curator: It does whisper of underwater worlds, doesn't it? To me, "Above and Below" speaks to that liminal space, the in-between where clarity blurs into mystery. The stain technique and the almost monochromatic palette achieve this wonderful atmospheric quality, like looking through clouded glass. Does that evoke anything specific for you, maybe a memory? Editor: That clouded glass feeling is exactly right! It’s like…trying to see something just out of reach. So, is the abstraction, and these hazy lines and organic textures, deliberate in its ambiguity, maybe about evoking feelings instead of illustrating specific scenes? Curator: Precisely. Think about the abstract expressionists. They were chasing feeling, raw emotion, the intangible realities that words fail to capture. Renfrow is in conversation with that tradition, yet forging his own path, using "stain" to conjure both ethereal lightness and brooding density, that pull we experience into the depths of a question, maybe a personal one? Is there any thing or theme the image is calling to you? Editor: It’s curious, and I like it. I had not realized this work and the methods are more aligned with the emotional landscape versus just surface imagery. Curator: Right! It's an invitation to look *into* the painting, not just *at* it, perhaps exploring something new within ourselves, through a portal of greys and blues.