Still life with fruit 1997

This is Mary Fedden's ‘Still life with fruit’, made with oil on canvas. I'm really drawn to the way she simplifies everything – it's not about making things look real, but about capturing the essence of the fruit and the scene. You can really sense how she enjoys artmaking as a process. I love how flat everything is, and how the colors kinda vibrate against each other. Like, look at the way the pinks of the tablecloth and background clash with the greens and oranges of the fruit, it’s not trying to be realistic, but it sure is visually exciting. The paint looks pretty thin, and I can see these gentle brushstrokes everywhere, especially in the sky. It almost looks like the painting is breathing, like the air is moving. I think the melon is my favorite, the way she’s painted the seeds like a perfect little pattern, it’s just so lovely. I’m reminded of Matisse’s interior scenes, where he uses flat planes of color to create these really dynamic, but peaceful spaces. In the end, that's what I like about art: it embraces ambiguity and multiple interpretations over fixed or definitive meanings.