Category: The Story Behind the Painting

I Only See You, 9" x 12", O/C, CAN$550 I recently finished I Only See You, a new oil painting in my Cravings series of still life paintings exploring food obsession. I Only See You focuses on the exclusionary relationship between Pink Pear and Jelly Doughnut as Sisyphus' warnings of the doomed nature of the task fade into the background. My inspiration for keeping the composition relatively spare in this painting came, as per Tempting Fruit, from the background colour of Terre Vert and white that I initially laid down. I loved the way colour gave an empty pining feel to the composition, so I chose to emphasize that. I loved working with this soft complementary colour scheme so much, I think I will be using that again at some…

Tempting Fruit, 9" x 12" O/C, CAN$ 550 I recently finished Tempting Fruit, a fresh new oil painting in my Cravings series exploring food obsession. It features returning characters Pink Pear and the Jelly Doughnuts, as well as an art history guest appearance by a couple (or pair) from the right hand side of the central panel of Bosch’s masterpiece The Garden of Earthly Delights (c.1515) (below). By <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Hieronymus_Bosch" class="extiw" title="w:en:Hieronymus Bosch"><span title="Dutch painter (c.1450-1516)">Hieronymus Bosch</span></a> - <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://boschproject.org/dzi/00MCPVIS.dzi">http://boschproject.org/dzi/00MCPVIS.dzi</a> (downloaded with <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://lovasoa.github.io/dezoomify-rs/">dezoomify-rs</a>), Public Domain, Link The inspiration for bringing Bosch into the picture began with the viridian green background in the early stages of the painting, along with the way the towel seemed to be leading the pear into the temptation of engaging…

Recently I have become fascinated with the paintings of 17th century Flemish still life painter Clara Peeters. Known as one of the originators of the ‘breakfast piece’ genre of still life painting, as well as the practice of including self portraits in the reflective surfaces of objects, I have become more than a little obsessed with understanding the Dutch Golden Age fascination with depictions of food and how that might connect with health and diet culture, wealth disparity, economics, the role of women, and depictions of the self. These two drawings are a way for me to find a new perspective on a familiar looking subject. Kitchen Feminism and After Clara Peeters (Still Life with Cheeses, Artichoke & Cherries)14” x 10.5” paper, Ink on PaperCAN$ 395 each In Kitchen Feminism the team…