"Modern Chinoiserie"

So I found out about a new artist on artthatfits.com and I think I might need this piece in my apartment J

The first image is titled “Morning Light” and the second is “A Song of Celebration” by Kathe Fraga.

I kind of have a love hate relationship with Fraga’s art. She claims to have a modern Chinoiserie vibe to her art when really she has a heavy Asian influence in her paintings. Chinoiserie was the Western interpretation of Eastern (Asian) motifs in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. It is a matter of semantics but it bothers me none-the-less.  I believe she isn’t interpreting anything with her art; she is directly applying Japanese florals and mode of landscape narrative where the branches enter and leave the picture plane.  I guess one could argue that the Western aspect of her art is her non-objective abstraction but I still don’t see a Westerner reimagining the Eastern Other in their Western context.

 

Still, I enjoy her use of color and the mixture of Modern drips (a la Pollock and Morris Louis) and squares (citing Joseph Alpers).

I would classify Fraga’s work as Contemporary Art Nouveau which fits perfectly with the style of our apartment. We love florals, bright colors, feminine abstraction, and general girlyness.