The Golden Toad – New paintings by Madeline von Foerster

Jul 5, 2011 Daniel Mirante in Exhibitions 1 Comment

Please join me at the opening of my forthcoming solo show!

Roq La Rue Gallery
2312 2nd Ave.
Seattle, WA 98121
(Between Bell and Blanchard in the Belltown neighborhood)
Phone: (206) 374-8977

Madeline von Foerster — The Golden Toad

Artist’s Statement

This new series of paintings envisions fairytales of the future. The current, unprecedented devastation of Earth’s wildernesses foretells a time when the great forests are gone, and with them, half the animal species with whom we share the world today. In comparison, the present will surely appear as a sort of Golden Age, abundant with lush forests and wondrous beasts — what sort of tales will they inspire?

Stylistically, these artworks suggest the rich paintings from the School of Fontainebleau, a sixteenth century efflorescence of French Art, which exalted the enchanted forest. An aura of mystery and possibility pervades the paintings, which are meticulously rendered using an uncommon Renaissance mixed-technique of oil and egg tempera.

Although imagining the future, a common theme of the paintings is memory. While researching these works, I hunted for a fairytale titled “The Golden Toad,” which I was so certain I had read, that I could almost recall its characters and plot. However, my mind was playing tricks on me, for the Golden Toad (Bufo periglenes) is actually a Costa Rican amphibian, recently extinct. Ironically, though humans are responsible for the planet’s vanishing forests and extirpated species, it is in human imagination and memory that these lost treasures will continue to exist. Therefore, the Golden Toad, now gone, returns in a mythical form, to remind us what we can still save.