Face to Face

‘Face to Face’ written by Della Gooden

How many times have you looked at a painting and it has looked straight back?  

In fact in 1995 I swear that Mondrian’s ‘Composition with Double Line and Yellow’ looked at me first. At the time I thought that little painting in the Gemeente Museum was one of the best I had ever seen. That’s why I chose it. Picked it out when playing a game of ‘Which one in this room would you steal?’

But perhaps the truth is it chose me. 
That’s how it really went.

It was an uncommon exchange and not forgotten because that painting had to crash through impossible barriers. It popped the conditioned tedium in that room and confidently called out: 

“Hey you!”

“Yes, YOU!”

“Come over here”

…So I did.

At the insistence of my present that encounter keeps from waning, continues to have poignancy and because it is such a brief incident from my past, it’s a little surprising that it even still matters -but it has become something of a personal parable, albeit one mediated by the vagaries of memory, by the time that has passed since, and by the renewed experiences of the re-runs.

I think I will need this painting for the rest of my life.

I have to wonder, does ‘Composition with Double Line and Yellow’ still call out to strangers?

… I’d like to think so.
I believe she’s back in Edinburgh now. 

© Della Gooden 2018

‘Face to Face’ by Della Gooden was commissioned by the curator of the exhibition ‘Transforming Surfaces’, Richard Bell and GR Thomson as one of 4 introductory texts for the catalogue.

‘Transforming Surfaces’ ISBN: 9781789260892
Published by Arthouse1 London