Still life with onions 1987

Mary Fedden created this still life with onions in 1987 using watercolor and collage. The painting is visually striking due to its blend of abstraction and representation, set against a square of neutral cardboard. Fedden destabilizes traditional still life through her application of paint and collage. The onion, rendered in thick white paint, juxtaposes with the almost spectral gray-blue wash above, which suggests a sky but then dissolves into drips, undermining any sense of conventional space. Similarly, the two black shapes to the right read as bottles only tentatively, challenging our perception and expectations. Through these formal decisions, Fedden engages with the modernist project of questioning representation. Rather than creating an illusionistic scene, she draws attention to the materiality of the painting itself. The collage elements further disrupt the illusion, reminding us that we are looking at a constructed image, an object with its own reality. It's a reminder that art invites us to see the world, and the objects within it, in new and questioning ways.