Natura morta 

Editor: We’re looking at "Natura morta" by Tano Festa, painted with acrylics. It strikes me as deceptively simple – a bowl of fruit against a bold, almost cartoonish background. What formal elements stand out to you most? Curator: The power lies in Festa’s treatment of pictorial space. Note the compression of depth. The tabletop and sky, rendered in flat planes, collide rather than recede. How does that juxtaposition influence your reading of the object–subject relationship here? Editor: It definitely flattens the fruit, almost like they are paper cut-outs applied to the surface. So, it emphasizes the artificiality, not the naturalness of it? Curator: Precisely. Observe how the bold outlines demarcate each form, distilling the objects into graphic signs. Consider, for example, the clouds, schematic representations hovering weightlessly above, mirroring the simplified shapes below. What effect is created by limiting the textural variation within the forms themselves? Editor: There’s very little shading or blending, so each piece of fruit is really just a shape filled with color, making them all look like very elemental symbols. Curator: In essence, Festa is engaging with the legacy of still life tradition, but estranging it through a distinctly contemporary lens. Do you agree with this? Editor: I can see that now. Thank you. I'd missed how much the basic geometric construction of the scene was playing with our expectations. Curator: Indeed, it prompts us to reflect on the translation of nature into signs, a key facet in modern image-making.