From The Brushes of The Masters

May 3, 2023

Art

At some point in their practice, every artist must contend with the legacy from which they are working. From Michaelangelo to Van Gogh, Georgia O’Keefe to Jean-Michel Basquiat, the work of the masters can be a well of inspiration. It can also be a source of anxiety so pronounced it's a wonder we all don’t hang up our paint brushes for good. This dichotomy is even more pronounced for those working within traditional mediums. We sat down with two artists featured in The Secret Garden Art Novel, Abby Olsen, and Abigail Matheson to discuss the rich legacy of traditional forms of artmaking, and their role in the modern world.

Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Abby Olsen practices a range of specialties including illustration, painting, animation, and textiles. Common subjects of her work include nature’s symbiotic relationship with human life and what can be done to preserve that connection. In her series of six ink drawings inspired by The Secret Garden, Abby highlights critical moments of Mary’s development to illustrate how integral the environment is to her growth. Abby’s work shows that the hidden critters and corners of Misselthwaite Manor are no mere backdrop, but characters in and of themselves.

Abigail Matheson is a classically trained oil painter based in Charleston, South Carolina. Her undergraduate studies focused on neuroscience and philosophy and she uses this background, combined with her artistic education, to capture the effects of light and air in her work. In her collection for The Secret Garden Abigail interrogates the dynamic of discovery between life and death and mimics the arc of Mary’s character through a classical framework that captures the small and fragile beauty of life.

While it is easy to admire the majesty of an oil painting, few are aware of the intense technicality of such work. Classically trained oil painters like Abigail will begin their practice with charcoal and work their way up to black and white paint before even beginning to experiment with paint or color. “It was a really interesting education in that everything is built on the previous steps,” Abigail says. Eventually, novice oil painters will begin doing master copies of great paintings from the past. “You look at the old masters and start noticing how objects are placed within a composition.”

While each artist has their own unique strengths and interests, the stunning visual quality of Abigail’s work is her ability to portray depth and dimension. “For me, I really wanted to be able to communicate form. That’s basically performing a magic trick, making something look 3D on a 2D surface. It’s all about analyzing how light will perform on the subject.”

Abby Olsen began her artistic education with graphite pencils and Lee Hammond’s instructional book How to Draw Horses. This fundamental text provided her with the skills needed to communicate shape and structure. Coincidentally, Abigail also confessed to loving this text as a child, furthering its role as a guide for young artists of the early 2000s.

For Abby, the book contributed to her great love of drawing animals. “[How to Draw Horses] showed you how to break down shape and proportion and what different pencils will do, and it was graphite-specific. That book was like my holy grail,” Abby says.

Abby’s ink drawings appear deceptively simple, but in truth exhibit incredible restraint. When working with ink you only get one opportunity to create the perfect line, each stroke of the pen curated from many hours of sketching. And while paint certainly possesses its challenges, it can also be used to conceal mistakes or reverse decisions. Ink allows for no such luxuries.

What makes for great art is not only how freely the artist can express themselves, but the technique they utilize in doing so, something Abigail is uniquely familiar with given the technicality and fickle nature of oil paints. “I see my work as being informed by two sides of me,” she says. “There’s the craftsman side and the artist side. The craftsman allows the artist to express what she wants to say and both have informed how I view the world. The craftsman side of me has changed how I see objects, how I see shadow and color. I interact and show up in the world differently because I have that background.”

Similar to balancing the artist and the craftsman, is the practice of working within an art form with a revered legacy, while still infusing modern details and signatures unique to the artist’s hand. Abby learned to negotiate that dynamic while studying in Florence, the historic textile capital of the world. “I studied with a master and lifelong screen printer and textile artist. Traditional Italian textiles have these regal patterns that are very pleasing to the eye, but when you get closer you can see what the actual subjects of the patterns are. I was able to take that and put some subversive imagery in my own work, modern subjects that commented on environmentalism and consumption. It was really cool to merge traditional techniques and modern ideas.”

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Abby used that education when creating the patterns that bookend The Secret Garden Art Novel. While the casual viewer will see lovely flowers against a backdrop of lavender and green, a closer look reveals Abby’s homage to endangered flora that is native to the region of England where The Secret Garden takes place.

That is not the only artwork with hidden surprises. Abby’s ink illustration Piper, which depicts Dickon playing the pipe in the forest, also contains hidden critters and animals among the trees. Abby draws upon the legacy of children’s books such as Winnie The Pooh to capture this moment of childhood innocence. “The illustration style of Winnie the Pooh is so whimsical and suggestive,” she says. “It doesn’t portray everything, it lets the readers fill in the scenes with their imagination. I thought that whimsical, uplifting, suggestive illustration captured the feeling I got from The Secret Garden.”

Abigail’s oil paintings, too, contain deeper meaning that may not be visible at first glance. This is especially prominent in her Vanitas Still Life, which pulls from a traditional composition that emerged in 17th-century Holland. In a classical still life, the objects painted represent the fragility and transient nature of life. Abigail adds additional meaning by painting symbolic objects found throughout The Secret Garden. “[In Vanitas Still Life] I included flowers that are starting to relax and the eggs which are very symbolic in the book. I painted the nest itself to be delicate, I played with lost edges there because I wanted the nest to be reabsorbed into the background. It serves as a temporary home, but will also collapse with time,” Abigail explains. “For the paper [in the painting] it’s all about communication. I’ve been interested in how we communicate and how communication can go wrong, the ephemeral nature of words, and the misinterpretation that can occur there.”

Abigail’s oil paintings take on an additional layer of meaning when considering the time period during which the novel takes place, and how this traditional style of work would likely be found in the landscapes and portraits that Mary encounters around Misselthwaite Manor.

Despite the technical prowess of Abby and Abigail’s work and the long legacy of artistic giants they draw from, at the end of the day, their appeal is in their ability to draw the viewer in. Whether whimsical or classical, playful or elegant, both artists reveal the hidden beauty in the world around us, and in highlighting it, allow us to experience our own environments differently.

“When art is done well, the artist can give the viewer a glimpse into seeing the world that way,”

Abigail says. “And if you’re super, super lucky, you can get your viewer excited about a shadow. You can get them to see everyday objects as being beautiful.”

We agree on all but one point, that we, the viewers, are the truly lucky ones.

To see more of Abby Olsen and Abigail Matheson’s work, visit Art Foreword.