Fortune Teller 1979

Frank Mason made this oil painting called 'Fortune Teller', and it's like peering into a small theatre of light and shadow. I imagine Mason was standing in a darkened room, the air thick with anticipation. The only illumination came from a single candle. See how the flame flickers across the subject's face and hands, pools of warmth surrounded by velvety blackness. The painting feels like a fleeting glimpse, a whispered secret. I get a sense of the history of painting here, that hot, saturated colour, the romanticism. The paint itself looks buttery, applied with soft, deliberate strokes. It makes me think of other painters, like Rembrandt, playing with light and drama. You can almost feel Mason's breath held as he captures this moment. Painting can be like a conversation between artists across time, a shared language of looking and feeling. It reminds us that nothing is ever truly new but always transformed.