Ascension 

Editor: This painting, titled "Ascension" by Remedios Varo, immediately strikes me with its otherworldly quality and warm tones against a somewhat desolate landscape. There's a figure cloaked in orange, standing on what looks like a raft. How do you interpret this work? Curator: Focusing on the materiality and production, look at the texture achieved through oil paint – that precise, almost miniaturist detail, across both the figure's garments and the landscape. This points to a meticulous, time-intensive process. Given Varo's engagement with Surrealism in Mexico and her European roots, consider the social context. Who had access to such materials and the leisure for this kind of labor? Does it speak to the rise of industrial painting? How might Surrealism open or mask those dynamics? Editor: That's fascinating. The texture almost makes it feel like tapestry. So, you're saying the *making* of the art, the choice of oil paint and technique, is a social statement in itself? Curator: Precisely. Varo's dedication to craftsmanship— the painstaking layering of oil paints, and construction of imagery, is something of an affirmation to a rejection to the consumerist notion of art being purely disposable, and maybe more about artistic process and material presence as an experience in itself. Doesn’t it bring into question our own relation to objects and time? Editor: Absolutely. I initially focused on the surreal imagery, but considering the production methods gives it another layer. Curator: By recognizing the labour and context behind its material existence, “Ascension” transforms from just a mystical image into a tangible reflection on the processes and means involved in its own creation. How does that shift your reading of the narrative within the painting? Editor: I see now that it invites a conversation about the means of art production during the time and it is amazing how it informs how we consume it now. Curator: Precisely! Now think about art that does the complete opposite. How would you assess its message?