Tragic Land 2009

Editor: This is "Tragic Land," an oil painting by Lisa Yuskavage from 2009. It has this ethereal quality, like a dreamscape, but there's something unsettling about it. The colors are muted, and the island in the center feels strangely isolated. How do you interpret this work? Curator: The title is our starting point, isn't it? Yuskavage positions the 'tragic' within the seemingly serene landscape tradition, demanding we question what exactly constitutes tragedy here. Is it environmental—this lone landmass surrounded by water hinting at rising sea levels and ecological devastation? Or is it societal, reflecting a world isolating itself in different ideologies, genders and races? Editor: I hadn’t considered the environmental aspect so directly, but that makes sense given current anxieties. I was focused more on the emotional feeling of loneliness that it communicates. Curator: Exactly, it's a deeply affective painting! It’s productive to consider it through the lens of contemporary feminist theory, particularly how the landscape genre has historically been coded as feminine, passive. Yuskavage seems to be disrupting that passivity. What is 'tragic' can then become the agency, the potential for transformation in the face of crisis. How do we resist reduction to the roles of victim, or nature? Editor: So you're suggesting the 'tragic' element could be the loss of identity? It has to reconstruct and reclaim a new space. Curator: Precisely! The tragic opens possibility, a re-evaluation. What does landscape mean, how do we use landscape, and who decides its future? Yuskavage opens all that. Editor: That gives me a lot to think about, especially regarding the loaded nature of 'landscape' as a genre itself. It adds a whole new layer of meaning to what initially seemed like a straightforward depiction of isolation. Curator: Agreed, this piece reframes how we read both the landscape and our role within it.