Gaze

Gaze, dated 2018, suggests a point-of-view composition in which the print itself adopts or depicts an act of looking — a figure or implied viewer directed toward a landscape, or the landscape framed as if seen through a specific vantage point. In Brodbeck's work, gaze is often implied rather than shown: the composition positions the viewer at an elevated or intimate prospect and orients the pictorial space outward. The print may depict a lookout over open water or dunes, consistent with Brodbeck's Great Lakes subjects, with the horizon as the implied terminus of the gaze. Compositionally, this would place the viewer's implied position off the picture plane, directing attention into a receding atmospheric space built through [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations. The color palette would likely be restrained — blues, grays, and pale ground tones — with the [washi](/glossary/washi) surface contributing its characteristic warmth to cooler pigment layers. The overall effect would emphasize stillness and directed attention.