Forgotten Strawberries 2021

Editor: Milt Kobayashi's 2021 oil painting, "Forgotten Strawberries", strikes me immediately with its almost melancholic air and impasto texture. What draws your eye when you examine it? Curator: Immediately, I’m drawn to the structural contrasts. The fluidity of the brushstrokes creating the figure is juxtaposed with the sharp, almost brutal application of paint suggesting the strawberries. Consider how that textural difference informs your experience of the piece. Does one element dominate? Editor: I notice how the subject's gaze is fixed on the viewer. The lost strawberries on the right seem to be less important than her stare. So it's like there are two structures in one. How do the visual components support this relationship? Curator: Precisely. Let us consider the color palette. The subdued background, largely neutral, forces attention onto the red and pink hues, especially around the face and the strawberries themselves. Observe how the painterly style affects our perception; does it feel unfinished or deliberately fragmented, drawing the gaze toward areas of denser texture? Editor: Now I see it! It does feel deliberately fragmented. Almost as if the background fades into insignificance to sharpen focus on her forlorn gaze. Does the painting’s construction lend itself to expressionism? Curator: Yes. But more interesting, it blends both Neo-Expressionistic features (notice, if you will, that emphasis on raw emotion, almost bordering on disquietude, expressed through subjective perception). Yet, it contrasts in ways that prompt engagement beyond simple thematic decoding. Is it enough for the strawberries to merely exist? Does it really represent 'forgotten strawberries' or could they represent moments frozen within a fleeting memory? Editor: I learned something new from looking at it that way! It’s about the dynamic between forms and colours that creates emotional impact, as you mentioned. It makes it feel less 'forgotten' and more preserved as raw emotion. Curator: Indeed. A powerful example of how a piece's value resides less in its subject, but how it renders material and meaning interdependent.