In his oil on paper, Interior Turquoise, Tim Braden presents a semi-abstract interior scene crowded with casually luxurious furnishings painted in a patchwork of vivid color and contrasting tones. Though there is a suggestion of seated figures in the background, Braden emphasizes the structural relationship of the various pictorial elements within the scene, which appears to depict a lounge in a fashionable resort or private home. Here, Braden instills an intentional ambiguity into the vaguely familiar subject, with the intention of cultivating a fictional nostalgia for another place and time. Braden acknowledges his debt to the example of the modernist French painter Henri Matisse, whose integration of brilliant color, strong light, and decorative elements informs much of Braden’s work.
