The tree on the riverbank 2014

Curator: The piece we’re looking at is by Alfred Freddy Krupa, a work called "The tree on the riverbank" completed in 2014. It is created with ink. Editor: It’s a wash, right? Feels instantly…calligraphic, in that Japanese way of capturing a whole landscape in just a few confident brushstrokes. So airy, and yet it suggests something so solid. The river is quiet though, so the solid might be just the artist. Curator: The artwork certainly showcases Krupa's engagement with Asian artistic traditions. Sumi-e painting comes to mind. These styles prize spontaneity and conveying the spirit of the subject, which would explain your description of that airiness. But here, one might also note Krupa's conscious presentation of "drawing," the linear quality itself being so strong and evocative. Editor: Yes! Evocative is a good word. There's a loneliness in that starkness too, isn't there? Like a single tree, standing its ground even if it doesn't do that literally in water. Are the horizons on rivers usually that…horizontal? Something isn't as horizontal in how most view the horizons in Asian landscape works or landscape in general. This isn't like any of the Zen artworks I'm familiar with either! Curator: Well, traditional landscape painting, whether in the East or the West, frequently presents an idealized, composed view. It represents harmony and balance, often with a subtle underpinning of political order. Here, the focus is very much on the single tree, an emblem of individual resilience, yes, against the river. Also a river changes a terrain of horizons with winds, as water's form changes based on a lot of environmental aspects. Editor: Resilience... I like that interpretation. A very bold resilience on this type of canvas! I can't help but think that the monochromatic ink adds to that sense of strength too, in that contrast of dark ink on the canvas! It looks a tad crumpled and all that. A tree would want a better horizontal support though for safety reasons I guess. Curator: Precisely. It disrupts that idea and that would change over time; an emblem of change over the strength you are witnessing. These free-flowing linear qualities could give abstraction an idea here with landscape for us to contemplate. I'd say this piece goes against much of the grain! I am glad to see that even artwork itself is resilient on so many artistic approaches. Editor: Ha! Okay, point taken. Next time I try to force something into a nice tidy Zen box, remind me that trees often just grow sideways on an inclined base and all. It is so very great!