Mother and Child 2020

Rose Freymuth-Frazier made this oil painting, *Mother and Child,* with a limited palette of oranges, blues, and whites. It's a domestic scene, perhaps even a self-portrait? I can imagine the artist carefully choosing the hues for the woman's orange robe, maybe mixing a bit of cadmium red with yellow ochre to capture the fabric's sheen. I wonder if she paused, brush in hand, thinking about the weight of the cat, the softness of its fur against her skin. Notice how the roses on the robe bleed into the background, dissolving the edges of the forms. That is a lovely gesture of the brush. It reminds me of Alice Neel's portraits, but with a touch more whimsy. You see, painters are always in conversation with one another, borrowing and responding to ideas across time. And each piece of work is always the end of an era and the start of another. Painting is really about the embrace of ambiguity.