Fragonard Visits the Bahamas

acrylic and toner on handwoven canvas, found buoys, rope

30” x 40”, 2017

[Available] Individual framed painting

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