Melissa Forman. She Who Flies With Cranes. Edition Size: 45. 11x15 inches Giclee on 330gsm 100% Archival Cotton Paper. $55. If there is an underpinning of hidden or symbolic meaning in Melissa Forman's She Who Flies With Cranes (and we strongly suspect there is), we'll tackle it another day. Right now we just want to bathe our eyes in the exquisite compositional balance of this painting. A woman (beautiful to the point where beauty itself is an emotion rather than a notion of appearance) faces two cranes enraptured by her gentle charm. The color scheme is a fluid harmony of black and white. What the woman is enjoying (perhaps?) is not a physical reflection of her being, but a metaphysical one - as if her eyes had discovered a magical mirror that chose to render up an avatar of the soul. That, of course, might be the underpinning we presumed was present. Regardless, our vision is still happy with what IT is privileged to see here. – Robert del Valle.
