Sabrina's Garden 

Curator: Oh, I’m immediately drawn to the strange light. It feels almost theatrical, as though this garden scene is happening on a stage set for a dream. Editor: I can see that. The lack of hard edges and hazy forms definitely give it a surreal quality. This is "Sabrina's Garden" painted in oil paint by Frances Hodgkins. It appears that no exact date is attributed to its creation. Curator: The first thing I see are the sunflowers. They stand so bright and erect amidst all this murk. Sunflowers usually symbolize adoration and longevity, so are we looking at the symbolic echoes of hope here, a way of extending life itself perhaps? Editor: Perhaps, or maybe they're just sunflowers. But what strikes me more are those figures to the left. They're like statuary, or ancient caryatids, guarding some unknown entrance or passage. Do they function almost as ancestors or mythical witnesses in Hodgkins' interior narrative? Curator: Interesting point. You're right; there's an inherent dichotomy set here. We’re peering at the painting from inside an enclosed space, yet simultaneously outside by the water’s edge, which mirrors and repeats its reflection from the opposite background in a perpetual feedback loop. It is reminiscent of the human spirit’s boundless freedom to be within and without our own skins and borders, simultaneously in our past and in our projected dreams for the future. Editor: A borderless inner theater indeed, ha! The odd angles create such instability, the objects on that table are on the brink of sliding right off and into our realm of perception. Curator: Hodgkins blurs boundaries and invites that sliding to be the main protagonist of this landscape – she challenges and questions every still-standing archetype of perception we tend to apply in life and in our human psyche. Do we consider this scene to be an allegorical portrait that addresses themes about what is lost or hoped for? Editor: Ultimately, art unlocks new pathways for seeing and interpreting the world around and within us. Curator: Indeed. This has given me much food for thought!