Overgrowth 

Curator: Sarah Joncas’s painting, "Overgrowth", offers a contemporary take on the traditional portrait, blurring the lines between human and nature. Editor: I'm immediately struck by its quietness, its hushed atmosphere. It feels like stumbling upon a secret glade, the colors so muted and moonlit. Curator: Exactly! Joncas masterfully employs a limited palette. There is this intriguing contrast in textures as well. Look closely and observe the luminosity of her skin against the rougher depiction of the mushrooms and wispy tree branches in the background. It brings forth themes of growth and decay, of beauty intertwined with something wilder. Editor: I find the mushroom illustrations rather interesting, there is no actual fungal decay that one can identify but it plays against a visual narrative about growth. What really catches my eye, however, are those moths—paper-thin and spectral perched there almost casually atop her head. There is clearly an appreciation and an allusion here. Curator: There is indeed! The moths and mushrooms, they whisper of metamorphosis, transformation. There's something deeply feminine, even primal, about the woman's calm acceptance of this… overgrowth, as if nature is claiming her back or perhaps she is welcoming it. How the boundaries between the painted surface and natural processes collapse is a stroke of brilliance from the artist. It makes me wonder what the production value was here for such beautiful artistry. Editor: I agree, you are bringing up very interesting and salient details! And while one can easily miss the quiet social commentary the production value provides to such artistic license. Perhaps Joncas is inviting us to find the sacred within the mundane, the wild within ourselves? Curator: Maybe so! I initially was very puzzled with the artist’s choice here, but I am actually drawn to its tranquility, its ability to find harmony in juxtaposition. Editor: Same! Thank you, Curator.