Tombeau Imaginaire 17 2019

Elina Brotherus made "Tombeau Imaginaire 17," and right away, I'm struck by its sense of calm, like a palette cleanser of greens, greys, and blacks. In this photograph, the figure stands still, but everything around her feels alive with potential energy, water rippling, rocks shifting, skies expanding. The surface of the water is like a painter's canvas with layers of transparent glazes, one over another; looking down through the depths, a story begins to unfold. The person is wearing something dark, maybe black, which makes me think about dark grounds in paintings. Brotherus seems to be in conversation with artists like Caspar David Friedrich. But whilst Friedrich's figures often dominate the landscape, the figure in Brotherus' image feels more like an integrated element within it. It's like art is this ongoing exchange, always borrowing, always responding, always open to new takes.