Surface Tension

Are you witnessing the denial of a goal, or the prevention of a potentially fatal accident? Is the tendon of fabric that binds our weightless dreamer a restraint, or is it in fact a lifeline? One could argue that she is being suspended above water she desperately needs to quench a nightmarish thirst. It might also be that the tether is meant to impede her unwitting approach to a potentially hostile shore. The push and pull of equally plausible ideas upon a singular concept generates constant tension in real life just as it does in art. And so, contemplation can lead to a form of resistance that would have us reject or accept some notions more than others, often leaving no one completely “right” or “wrong.” To wit, it is my guess that many of you initially thought that the woman in the picture was being held back from the safety of dry land (or spared drowning in the icy lake beneath her): yet another tensile possibility, borne of inverting the basic terms of the dangers suggested at the outset of this summary.

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