Art and grief are close friends. So it is no surprise that an artist would use her medium to process the loss of two of her close friends. In Mia Wolff’s new work, Lost & Found, the painter combines scenes from her real life and her dreaming life to recount some of the stories from two of the most important relationships in her life.
Buy Lost & FoundThrough memories and mythology, Wolff shares vignettes that highlight the personal importance of these relationships. The work reads like a personal journal and is less a focus on her grief and more about sharing about her love for these friends with her audience.
Wolff’s paintings are beautiful and reflect how memories and dreams have both very clear and precise moments but also soft and rolling edges that are not always in focus.
While I enjoyed this work, there were places in Lost & Found that I found it difficult to understand which people Wolff was discussing. But maybe the reader is not meant to understand every moment of these stories and anecdotes. Maybe the personal nature of this work is solely that, personal. And perhaps getting to read and view this work as it is is enough. Being let into anyone’s grieving process is, in many ways, an honor. So for Wolff to invite the reading public into hers, maybe we are meant more to look and listen as part of her healing and in turn it’s okay that we don’t fully understand every detail.
Lost and Found by Mia Wolff is published by Fantagraphics and is available now.
