Christine Frerichs | ElephanArt

Doorway
2015
Oil and Activated Carbon
Paint on muslin on panel
213 x 91 cm

"The original inspiration for these types of Doorway paintings came from being blown away by a Fra Angelico exhibit at the Met Museum a while ago. He was an Italian painter and Dominican Friar working in the early 1400's, and I noticed that in nearly every painting, he would include an open doorway. It was so curious to me, and I began to understand these painted doorways symbolically as a space of "potential" in his paintings. Meaning, he gives us the narrative of people interacting and telling a story, and then places a doorway next to it to represent an "open door" to other narratives, or other people entering or exiting the scene. People often discuss paintings as "windows" into other worlds. But I wanted to do more than look through a window-like painting... I wanted to give a full-body experience of feeling like you could walk into the painting... I had not seen painters addressing this doorway idea, so it felt like a unique way to continue the conversation, in an abstract form."

Christine Frerichs

Christine Frerichs: The Past