Abandoned Cottage

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on December 16, 2015 at 9:10pm

Curator’s Comments:

 

This is a gorgeous watercolor interior, offering the viewer a hyper-real and textured space.  The peeling deterioration of the walls for me visually underscores the unkempt beds, without conjuring a mood of widespread deterioration or decay.  The space is far from gloomy; the warm sienna colored tones enliven the room which appears to be recently inhabited.  I also like the vertical elongation of the pictorial plane, which draws attention to the wooden slatted ceiling before connecting to the horizontal planes below.  I find myself searching through the folds of the drapery to try and decipher an embedded narrative.  But I just get a vague sense of a couple.  The duality or “two-ness” of the beds perform roles as empty figurative stand-ins.  There is also a feeling of tight enclosure, which could be forced economy or intimacy. That I can’t quite tell makes it all the more interesting.   The piece is beautifully architectural, but quite personal.  I ultimately find Abandoned Cottage, Donegal to be a complexly layered portrait.  The earnestness and vulnerability of the view allow for entry into what is unseen or overlooked.