46 Artists Magazine December 2019
richly balanced light, serves as entice-
ment to tell ourselves a story about
the scene.
A more poignant narrative emerges
in Tenant (below), in which a solitary
house appears in the twilight, its win-
dows dark except for one on the upper
floor to the side. The title suggests
that this is where a tenant lives, while
the general sense of emptiness aroundthe building and in the vast blue sky
adds a somewhat alienated and
melancholy feeling to the piece.
The strong narrative feel of
Frederick’s work has attracted inter-
est from many writers. In 2015, the
artist invited a number of authors to
write short stories inspired by partic-
ular paintings for his “Night Stories”
2017 exhibition at the Forum Gallery,in New York City, which then traveled
to the Center for Maine Contemporary
Art, in Rockland, Maine. Participants
in the Night Stories book (glitterati,
2017) included such luminaries as
Pulitzer Prize-winning authors
Richard Russo and Elizabeth Strout,
writers whose work in some way
seems to emerge from the same
world as that of the painter.