Chinese Teapot 1989

Here’s Mary Fedden’s ‘Chinese Teapot’, made with oil on canvas. Look at how she’s gone to town with the pinks! There are some careful outlines, but the feeling is loose, and that comes from trusting the process. There's this great circular form in the centre, and the whole thing feels built up, layer by layer. I keep looking at that black squggle on the teapot and teacup, it almost looks like a face, or a weird glyph, and somehow that anchors the whole painting for me. It gives me a place to start looking, and then I can let my eye wander around. The black balances out the pinks and oranges of the patterned background, and stops it from getting too saccharine. Fedden’s paintings make me think of Patrick Caulfield, both finding ways to take something normal, everyday, and turn it into a celebration of colour, form, and texture. And what is painting, if not an ongoing experiment, a way of seeing that allows for multiple interpretations?