fine art Archives - Page 2 of 2

The Curated Collection | Matthew Schofield

I believe that good art is a filter to the world. It gathers and collects the memories and emotions and experiences that are difficult to shape and gives them form and meaning. Good art distills life and makes it somehow more palatable or beautiful or comprehensible or sane. Good art makes us feel something.

And that is how I feel about the work of Matthew Schofield. Matthew’s work makes me feel something. For me, it is a sense of being transported back into childhood memories, even though the images he paints are from a childhood not my own. There is something about the ordinary, everyday-ness of the scenes and moments and details he captures that reminds me of my former child-sized view on the world, and somehow this is comforting.

I first came across Matthew‘s work with the collection of pieces you are seeing here. Making the most of Snap Decisions was an exhibition of paintings created from the 4 x 6 inch photographs taken by Matthew when he was young; accidental compositions unwittingly created at various stages of his youth that he had collected and kept over time. Random moments captured in youthful photographs now translated by the adult Matthew into these beautifully detailed paintings. As he calls it, “the ordered outcome of the cumulative imagery.”

{Admit it, you just “roared” like you did when you were a kid playing with your plastic T-Rex.}

My absolutely favourite painting from this collection was and is the one above. It is in fact carefully installed in my home in a secret place of honour where I get to engage with it daily. I see something of my son’s childhood and mine all wrapped up together in it, and I experience a joy, curiosity and freedom each time I linger.

I am entirely smitten with images from his latest collection as well – a continuation of my own childhood memories as seen through the lens of Matthew‘s. Memories of picnics and driving through The African Lion Safari in our sweaty car one summer and guests gathered around our dining table in the dim light of the evening. To me, Matthew elevates ordinary moments and reminds us that they are the canvas upon which we paint our lives.

What memories have you collected, that – if pulled together and considered for their potential – might just be beautiful? Wishing you a day where even the ordinary reveals it itself to be extraordinary when given the chance to really be seen. Thank you, Matthew, for the reminder and the inspiration.

xo
s.

The Curated Collection | Kelly Reemtsen

Provocative and compelling. That is my first reaction to the work of fine artist Kelly Reemtsen. The unexpected pairings of pretty and powerful depicted in her paintings are at once arresting and demanding of a response. From the moment I first laid eyes on her work, Reemtsen had both my rapt attention and my most sincere admiration. She also had me brimming with questions and the desire to sit down for coffee with her for a conversation that would no doubt be utterly fascinating.

I wanted to know if Reemtsen was being literal or ironic; direct or subversive. As it turns out, Kelly is not making an ironic statement about feminism. She is not theorizing about housewives. Rather, she is painting modern day empowerment as she sees it.

Grace and strength, beauty and empowerment are juxtaposed and yet entirely at home together in fit-and-flare silhouettes, pearls and “any tool necessary to get the job done.” I believe Kelly in her sincerity, and yet still I wrestle with my own personal tensions as a woman and the ways in which I see them threaded throughout these prim and unexpectedly powerful narratives.

Clearly, Kelly’s subjects are women who will do whatever it takes to be extraordinary. They are the kind of women I admire; the kind of women who intimidate me; the kind of woman I’d love to become in my more polished moments.

I think the questions Kelly’s work calls to mind are how I can more aptly marry beauty with fierceness; fearlessness with gentility; pretty with powerful. I love that she has me asking these questions. It feels to me as though she’s saying we don’t have to choose between these worlds. Pretty girls can get their hands dirty. Fierce girls can wear pearls. Graceful women can use power tools. We can get the job done and look good doing it.

Thank you, Kelly, for your compelling and beautiful paintings and the conversation they spark within me. I am sincerely inspired by your courageous, feminine strength and am honoured to have encountered your work.

xo
s.

P.S. Would you believe Kelly actually wraps gifts in maps just like me? And phone book pages, too. The best.