California Wildflowers 2018

Rose Freymuth-Frazier's 'California Wildflowers' feels like it was born out of a love affair with paint and place. The artist uses a full spectrum with touches of pinks, blues, yellows, and greens to create a sense of liveliness and depth. Up close, the surface is a mosaic of brushstrokes. You can almost feel the give and take, the back and forth, as Freymuth-Frazier worked to capture the light dancing across the meadow. Look at the clouds, thick and creamy, almost sculptural against the blue. What makes this painting sing is how the artist allows the materiality of the paint to shine, embracing the messy vitality of nature. There's a real conversation happening between the paint, the artist, and the landscape itself. It reminds me a little of Joan Mitchell, in the way that she also used colour and expressive brushwork to capture the feeling of a place. Just as Mitchell found inspiration in the French countryside, Freymuth-Frazier seems deeply connected to the landscapes of California. And like all good art, this painting invites us to bring our own experiences to the conversation, to find our own meaning in its colours and forms.