Sunflowers and Sun-Crossed Sky in Summer 1968

Curator: "Sunflowers and Sun-Crossed Sky in Summer" from 1968 is the work of British artist John Bratby. The thick application of oil paint immediately grabs my attention. What do you make of it? Editor: Visually, it's almost violently cheerful! The impasto practically vibrates off the canvas. The colour choices and the overall composition radiate summer. Curator: Bratby, a key figure of Kitchen Sink Realism, was known for depicting domestic life with raw intensity. But the socio-political context saw shifts away from this in the late 60's, with artists reflecting shifting trends towards pop and abstraction. Here, his work maintains his earlier spirit yet pushes towards the abstract, almost celebrating the exuberance of summer but in quite a contained composition. Editor: Right, but that 'contained composition' still pulses with vitality because of his brushwork. The way the individual strokes build to suggest the forms of the sunflowers... it’s mesmerizing. Note how each petal almost battles for visual precedence on the picture plane! Curator: And beyond this battle, it speaks to how, by the late 1960's, gardening and domesticity, while reflecting entrenched gender roles, were being reclaimed as sites of resistance against mass commercialism. To render sunflowers this vibrantly… the gesture reflects the artist’s connection to both nature and this ideal of resistance, if maybe unconsciously. Editor: Hmm, unconsciously perhaps. Yet, the artist is in complete command of the plasticity of paint to construct these forms. And consider the light! How he layers those strokes to emulate form. Even though simplified, these sunflowers still strike me as fully realized within their two-dimensional field. Curator: That is the enduring fascination of Bratby's style—to weave societal dynamics, everydayness and this expressive technicality so thoroughly together. Editor: Agreed. He's shown me how vibrancy can manifest both on a personal and societal level. Curator: A summer’s field distilled into impasto—quite something to ponder, really.