Bear Mountain 2015

Elina Brotherus made this photograph, called Bear Mountain, using a camera to capture a figure in a forest. It's full of leafy textures and dappled light, and the palette is really quite beautiful, dominated by greens, browns, and beiges. Look at how she's composed the shot, placing the person right in the middle. It's as if she's trying to say something about our place in nature, or maybe our disconnection from it. The colors are so muted, almost like a faded memory. The figure seems lost, both in the literal sense of being surrounded by trees, but also in a more emotional way. The way the light filters through the trees reminds me of Caspar David Friedrich, who used nature to explore feelings of awe and isolation. But Brotherus brings her own contemporary spin. It's a reminder that art is always in conversation, echoing and reinterpreting what came before, as each generation wrestles with different ideas.