Hand woven, mixed media art piece with soft pastel colors, textured surface, three found buoys attached with black ropes, and a stitched fabric background with a stamped message that reads 'In case of flood climb to safety'.

Fragonard Visits Miami

acrylic and toner on handwoven canvas, found buoys, rope

30” x 40”, 2017

 

[In Private Collection]

A classical painting depicting a young woman swinging on a swing suspended from a tree, surrounded by lush greenery, children, and cherubs in a romantic, Baroque style.

The Fragonard Visits paintings were inspired by Jean Honore Fragonard’s renowned L’Escarpolette (English: The Swing), created in 1767 during the Rococo movement in France. This style, very popular in the few decades leading up to the the French Revolution, was characterized by a pastel palette and a focus on the playful, decadent, and frivolous by a governing aristocracy who were intently ignoring the warning signs of a system out of balance.

Kassewitz relates this chapter of history to our current one, with growing inequality between the social classes and evidence that environmentally we can’t continue business as usual. Key compositional moments from Fragonard’s painting have been reinterpreted in the contemporary abstraction of Kassewitz. Note the use of buoys as the three protagonists and further still the incorporation of an actual “swinging” component. The palette of pink and green remains.

Incorporated into this work are numerous found flotation objects:

  • The pink striped buoys —  from the Florida Keys

  • The aqua buoy — from the Florida Keys