Dried Lake, Phnom Penh 2015

Editor: This is Elina Brotherus' "Dried Lake, Phnom Penh" from 2015, a photograph. It evokes a strange feeling; the light is beautiful, but the dried landscape clashes with the dress and the city in the distance. How do you interpret this work through a Formalist lens? Curator: Well, consider the careful arrangement of compositional elements. Notice the contrast in textures between the roughness of the dry field and the smoothness of the model’s dress. The photograph employs a muted color palette – the desaturated blues and greens – and horizontal banding between field, figure, and distant horizon line that divide the pictorial space. It prompts questions of spatial relationships and geometric organization. Editor: So you see these divisions and textures as key? The woman seems so small compared to the landscape; is that relevant from a formal perspective? Curator: The scale is important. The diminutive figure accentuates the vastness of the landscape, playing with perspective and spatial recession. How does the balance, or imbalance, between the figure and her environment shape your understanding? What statements does this artistic choice seem to be making about the work as a whole? Editor: It feels like the artist wants to evoke feelings about nature in the landscape with postmodernism as a medium. Thank you for highlighting this way of deconstructing photographic space and using visual contrasts, instead of thinking about historical background first. Curator: Indeed, focusing on these fundamental elements allows us to have rich, interesting insights, irrespective of historical interpretation.