In mid June 2025, Louis-Jean Vannoye, intern at Olivier Cornet Gallery, wrote about Conrad Frankel's Irises. This painting is on view and available for sale at the gallery (1,800 euro).  

When I first discovered the gallery’s storage area, many works caught my eye, but none like Conrad Frankel’s. Therefore, when asked to write about my favorite artwork in the gallery, I decided to focus on one of his pieces. Several of his works have joined reputable collections, including the Irish State’s art collection through the Office of Public Works. Many of his works have also been acquired in many private collections. I was delighted to learn that he would be opening a new solo exhibition during my internship at the gallery, and I was overjoyed when I found out that it would feature flowers and still lifes (which I adore). The exhibition, titled Spring Opens Forever in Eternity, marked his fourth solo show at the gallery. It opened on May 15th and closed on June 8th, 2025, coinciding with spring. For the opening, we welcomed the German architect Joerg J. Berchtold, a friend of his, as a guest. Unlike most of his previous works for the gallery, which centered around landscapes and war paintings, he returned to his roots and focused on still lifes. In these pieces, the vessels and flowers depicted are real. Moreover, the paintings feature unique frames that Conrad Frankel bought from antique stores. For this exhibition, he concentrated on the season of spring, as he puts it himself, “on flowering things, plants opening and enlightening the world with their fresh beauty,” and the cyclicality of life; a never-ending story of seasons. Even though the world faces man-made crises during the “deepest darkest winter,” flowers will spring again. He explains that painting the materiality and sensitivity of flora in still lifes helped him escape the many heart-rending thoughts about human conditions in the world.

The title of the show, "Spring Opens Forever In Eternity," written in verse, carries a literary implication. Furthermore, from my perspective, it also resonates with a theatrical dimension, much like a line spoken in a verse drama, which is evident in the content of the paintings. Each artwork highlights one element, with flowers resembling protagonists. I believe this theatrical aspect is expressed through anthropomorphism in small details—curved stems, fallen leaves, peculiar backgrounds, garnished tones, and so on. I perceive different states of life within them through unique characteristics, presenting themselves to the spectator like a soliloquy, a doleance, waiting for someone to lend an ear.

I’d like to focus now on one of the paintings from the exhibition, "Irises." The artwork was achieved using oil painting on linen laid out on board, and it measures 34 by 41 centimeters. It depicts two large irises that have grown from the peduncle (the flower stalk), and they display a vibrant purple hue. Additionally, buds have sprouted from the pedicel (the stalk of an individual flower). The entire composition leans to the left, with a green leaf that fell from a curved, bud-less stem lying beneath it. The iris plant is placed in a nearly full small glass of water. The entire piece rests on a concrete slab positioned atop a large concrete block, which shows signs of damage. The background of the artwork features fine plaster in various shades of beige, and a downward beam of light is coming from the left. Finally, the glass of water is slightly offset to the right, allowing the leaning iris, which tilts to the left, to take center stage in the artwork. Regarding the artistic approach, Conrad pays homage to the Italian painter and printmaker Giorgio Morandi (b. 1890, d. 1964). Morandi is known for his metaphysical paintings influenced by Giorgio de Chirico (b. 1888, d. 1978) and his later simpler works, in which he attempted to express the stillness of spaces and the hidden state of being. The painting’s finest details are most prominently revealed in the depiction of water and the light reflection passing through the glass (the refraction phenomenon). This is one of the reasons why I love this painting: he managed to showcase his technical skill without making it the focal point of the artwork. Additionally, the background is one of my favorite features of the painting, as it occupies most of the canvas. It’s not merely a single tone of beige; it's several tones creating a whole.

I see the artwork as embodying two emotions: roughness and life. The base on which everything is set lacks smoothness and appears rough; the same goes for the background. The base could range from a sacred monolith to a mere concrete block. Its materials, as well as the background, are cold and hard, sharply contrasting with the fragile glass. Moreover, beams of light are only shed on the surface of the support, leaving its sides in the darkness. To me, the shades that make up the background look like a tempest, casting an ominous threat to the flower’s life. Lastly, like all the other paintings from the show, this artwork is framed in a uniquely styled distressed wooden mount. The frame bears the marks of time that has passed; yet, it remains standing and serves as a support for the life of a flower. This frame might have influenced my choice in this exercise, as I love how it plays into this peculiar occasion, an extension of the artwork; the context is uncertain, but the flower is still standing.

The other predominant emotion represented in the painting is, as I interpret it, life. The irises’ purple hue is the only mark of colour standing out in the painting, and it therefore breaks the other neutral tones. Moreover, in floriography (the art form that seeks to interpret the language of flowers through various factors like scent, texture, and even medicinal properties), the purple hue of the irises is often associated with strength and courage. These emotions resonate with the next part of my interpretation. Although there is a fallen leaf from the irises lying beneath them, it signifies the passage of time and reflects the lifecycle of a flower, represented by the sprouting of new buds on fresh stalks. Ultimately, the plant's posture reaches skyward, embodying a refusal to give up on life. Lastly, the irises arch and twist, in contrast to the flat and angular elements surrounding them.

All these thoughts about the struggle for life within an unwelcoming environment remind me of the movie Mulholland Drive, directed by David Lynch. Though my interpretation of the painting and the film's plot have different finales, they do share some similarities. The plot centers on a young woman striving for the American dream in Los Angeles, aiming to become a world-renowned actress in Hollywood. However, her journey is cut short by the dubious and depraved behavior of the American cinema industry. The main character, Diane Selwyn (and her alter ego Betty Elms), is innocent and fragile. Her attempts to become a moving picture actress household name are a sharp-edged double-sided sword in a world of sharks. The comparison might be far-fetched, but I see similarities between those irises and Diane. In this David and “Goliath”-like situation, they both appear like underdogs. Lynch, who lost his life in 2025 due to the Los Angeles fires and who lived most of his life in that same city, often used the phrase “night-blooming jasmine.” This enigmatic phrase (which is inscribed on his epitaph) encapsulates his sensation of the atmosphere of old Los Angeles. For instance, in 2016, during an interview with AnOtherMagazine, he declared, “When you fly into LA at night, it’s all lit up, miles and miles of lights – so beautiful. It’s a very fast image. But within it there are these places that talk about memory. You know, on a summer’s night, maybe more like a spring night, you could drive to certain places and if you smell that night-blooming jasmine, you can almost see Clark Gable or Gloria Swanson. The golden age of Hollywood is still living in some moods here, in the DNA of the city". Nights, and especially spring nights, were for Lynch the moments when he could smell the jasmine again, its fragrance filling the needs of reminiscence and longing warmth. Living each day meant to him that the night would follow, and therefore creating a cyclic reward. “Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole,” as he would say.

As a piece of conclusion, my attraction for this painting is explained by its duality of destruction and rebirth. I also truly enjoy the overall theme of cyclicality of seasons conveyed in the life of a flower, in addition to the small pieces of detail that I interpreted as key to the understanding. Lastly, I appreciate Conrad Frankel’s aim to depict the beauty in the overlooked, with the flower placed on a base with light shed upon it, leaving its story open for interpretation. But also the catalyst of this show, being the artists' need to rejoice in gloomy days.

I will conclude with a quote from the poem 'The Windhover' by Gerard Manley Hopkins, selected by Conrad Frankel.

   "No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion

    Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion."

Louis-Jean Vannoye, June 2025