Red Frames

We all live inside frames. Limits we didn't choose and can't fully escape — no honest person believes they can do everything. The question this work asks is quieter and harder: can we make the picture inside the frame beautiful anyway?

A black figure sits within a red border, contained but not defeated. The red carries the weight — a strong colour for a complicated truth. The image we live inside is painted across a whole life; every day we add something to it. Some days we want to break out of the frame. Most days we make a home in it.

I built it in layers: fine art paper coloured with red acrylic, a decorative frame printed from a linocut matrix, then the silhouette pressed in black ink — so the surface is something you feel as much as see. From the series Within Certain Frames. Signed.

Jolanta Johnsson