Holding back the years 

Curator: Before us hangs “Holding back the years”, a powerful portrait rendered in oil paint. Editor: It strikes me as a face emerging from the shadows, with a rawness in its expression – almost grief, definitely vulnerability. Curator: Edlinger-Kunze employs an expressive style here, building up layers with impasto to bring this figure forth with a delicate but unsettling realism. There's a clear emphasis on figuration in her approach, though tinged with elements of modernism in the application of paint and the distortion. Editor: The distortion serves a purpose, doesn’t it? The raw brushstrokes seem to capture something more profound than simple representation. It evokes societal pressures on aging women. It's like she's simultaneously revealing and concealing something, battling both visibility and erasure. Curator: The artistic choice certainly enhances this mood, suggesting internal emotional turmoil through the application of impasto. And, I see symbols here; the darkness around the face is not necessarily ominous, but represents what society expects women to endure. This is amplified through those "weeping" streaks of paint which might stand in for the expectations imposed upon women over time, impacting identity and even affecting political status within the community. Editor: Yes, it makes me think of the psychological burden – this forced fight against aging in a society so fixated on youth, especially in representations of women in the media. It all accumulates. And then where does it go? It becomes an intergenerational struggle, with so many trapped inside oppressive structures of feeling. Curator: Exactly. She’s created not just an image, but a potent emblem of endurance, an icon of resistance in the face of societal expectations that so easily erode female experiences into stereotypes, stripping away complexity and the fullness of an aging life. Editor: It’s a compelling depiction. And this pushes us to rethink what images we valorize and consider those untold experiences, those untold iconographies. Curator: Agreed, the weight and meaning resonate on multiple levels. Editor: A really remarkable experience to dwell upon.