Silent walk home 

Curator: "Silent Walk Home" by Neale Worley, beautifully captures a scene seemingly bathed in the late afternoon sun. A mother and child are depicted from behind, hand-in-hand, walking along what appears to be a dusty path. It’s an oil painting, isn't it? Painted *en plein air* one might guess. Editor: Yes, those rapid, visible brushstrokes…I see sunlight filtered through leaves and reflecting off the pale rocks in the background. It looks rough-hewn; you can practically feel the weight of the impasto. Immediately, the contrast of the figures moving into shadow creates a contemplative, solitary mood for me. What do you make of that, then? Curator: Solitary... but also profoundly intimate, no? This is a brief moment lifted from the stream of existence. There is an everyday universality that somehow still speaks to very specific emotions and relationships. Perhaps it evokes childhood summers of quiet affection for the viewer. Editor: Intimate maybe. I can see the evocation of domestic space but also a commercial, touristic angle, certainly. What is on sale here? A scene; this landscape tradition; or perhaps idealized family relationships. What sort of labour and material goes into those paintings and images? Canvas, oil paint, brushstrokes…It’s an artifact but also a commodity! The image here of labor feels decidedly absent – yet someone's hands touched every square inch. Curator: Hmm...interesting point on labor absent. Although there’s nothing to tell, you can imagine this woman walking to or from manual work? What if we zoom in to consider the raw emotion? It makes me question what they may be carrying, or going back to. Perhaps the painting offers viewers space to bring something of themselves to those silences? The quiet drama… It’s that dance between presence and absence again. Editor: Precisely, absence too becomes presence in this painting! Perhaps what is evoked with this art and design practice goes to challenge established materialist views and relations after all… In any case, thanks for lifting open those points with your fine insights on everyday domestic dramas and emotion. I learned from our perspectives this day, again!