Mansion 

Curator: What a captivating landscape, so direct and uncluttered. This oil painting, titled "Mansion", shows the influence of plein-air techniques and impasto on Grigoriy Goldstein’s artwork. Editor: My immediate thought is, how idyllic. The colour choices evoke feelings of calm and perhaps longing, even solitude. What do you read in this setting? Curator: I read the painting as a quest to locate the ideal life, and to paint it. Goldstein shows us a large green pasture, that has some scattered colourful elements in it - the red dots almost mimic poppies or wildflowers that attract us with joy to a single building, that is the eponymous "Mansion". Note how this lone building appears to be at the high point on a small hill. Editor: True, that placement certainly invites an allegorical reading. But do you also feel how much visual weight is assigned to the lone tree, and even the cloudy sky, drawing the viewer’s gaze upwards and expanding this composition beyond being simply an appreciation of landed gentry or properties? Curator: Ah, an excellent observation. That upward thrust of the lone dark tree gives the viewer something familiar to orient their gaze to. Like the Mansion, it too pierces the horizon. Goldstein is surely conscious of contrasting those organic shapes, trees and hills, against the artifice of architectural constructions. And, yes, it reframes the mansion beyond one single element that would have carried a singular value signifier. Editor: What is also very powerful here, from a historical and sociological perspective, is Goldstein’s simplification of shapes and forms. The building has soft colours, and basic architectural features - this is perhaps a sign that social barriers become much less significant in a modern age, especially regarding public imagination and identity formation. Curator: Exactly! A "Mansion" no longer reflects elitism. That’s certainly plausible given how cultural narratives shape even physical places over long stretches of time. Well, that certainly sheds a new light for me. Editor: Indeed! I appreciate seeing how the building is represented here. This brings more depth into what could have been an overtly simple landscape.