Still Life with Frying Pan and Red Cabbage 1979

This Louisa Matthiasdottir painting, ‘Still Life with Frying Pan and Red Cabbage,’ is like a stage set of kitchenalia, rendered in a palette that's both earthy and electric. You can tell she's really feeling the process, each object captured with a kind of joyful directness. I love the physicality of the paint here, the way she builds up the surfaces with these confident, visible strokes. The blue tablecloth is a marvel, almost vibrating with energy. Look at how she renders the shadows – not with some timid grey, but with bold, unapologetic blues and purples. It gives the whole scene a kind of dreamlike intensity, you know? The cabbage itself, with its chunky daubs of purple and white, feels almost sculptural. This isn’t just a painting of a cabbage; it’s a celebration of its form, its texture, its very essence. Matthiasdottir reminds me a little of Fairfield Porter, in the way she finds such extraordinary beauty in the ordinary. It’s a reminder that art is as much about seeing as it is about doing.