Curatorial notes
Curator: Welcome. We are standing before Mary Fedden's "On the Shore," a watercolour painted in 1988. It presents a seated woman on a beach. Editor: It's dreamy, isn’t it? The colour palette evokes a quiet melancholy, the figures seem almost ghost-like against a turbulent sky. I find it really quite moving. Curator: Fedden masterfully employs the transparency of watercolour to create depth. The woman’s figure is substantial, yet allows glimpses through, framing what seems to be a child in her arms, an image rendered almost as an apparition. Editor: Yes, there’s that interplay between presence and absence that strikes me. The form of the child, created from the negative space within the mother’s form—it's cleverly done. Are we to see this figure, quite literally, ‘in’ her? A memory perhaps? A future hope? Curator: Perhaps both? The open brushwork and washes suggest a fluidity that extends beyond the visual into the realm of memory. And that sailboat in the background, such a small and solitary detail, set against a backdrop of stormy grey. What could that represent? Editor: Isolation? Hope? There's an elegant tension between that tiny symbol of potential journeying and the grounded presence of the woman, literally 'on the shore'. Compositionally, it's fascinating how the colour gradients guide the viewer's eye. And yet the emotional restraint...It stops short of sentimentality. Curator: Indeed. Fedden had an extraordinary knack for simplicity. Despite her Modernist tendencies, I find figuration remains critical here. A way to give form to human emotion. It's tempting to speculate, what might she be waiting for? A returning ship, perhaps? Or is she merely savouring a quiet moment in anticipation? Editor: Either way, "On the Shore" makes me want to slow down and ponder these simple things – the way light moves, the fleeting presence of a memory, what it feels to wait for things just out of our reach. Curator: Mary Fedden asks us to pause at the shore between those things; tangible reality and ethereal dreams.