One test of art is whether you get tired of it after a while. The best art is not tedious or tiresome. This is a painting we've had in our living room for a while and I like it better all the time. It is pretty large, about 40"x50" and it is painted on cardboard.
The use of color is minimal, and the light is very interesting. The subject matter is strikingly original--it keeps surprising me every time I look at it. It's a pear, looking off the edge of some sort of girder, into the chasms of a city. There is light where the pear's face would be; is that hope? The artist assures me that the pear is not suicidal, or even sad. The Writing on the Wall is somewhat ominous, basically, "Creative Poetry by the Numbers" and blah, blah, blah. The buildings are cold and impersonal, at the same time that I want to anthropomorphize them and think of them as watching the scene, because the pear naturally appears to have consciousness, since it is the center of attention and seems to be leaning out over the depths.
I am soothed by the warm browns and the regular lines, and the girder seems to offer a pathway back to the world for the protagonist, once he has finished contemplating his situation. I really like this painting. I think I'll keep it.
4 comments:
What a nice critique! You're welcome to keep it. This is one that grew on me, as well. I originally almost didn't take it home because it was so hard to take on the bus, and I almost thought it wasn't worth the effort. But now, I like it a lot, after looking at it in our living room so much.
~Artist Alice
Oh, and uh, reading your reply to me on the last entry.. guess I'd better say something insightful about the painting itself, for those who don't know.
It was done towards the end of my drawing concentration (for AP Drawing), maybe the 20-somethingest piece I did about pears, and just to get my art teacher to hush about me working bigger. The pears all had emotions, some clear, some vauge, and this was a pretty vauge one, I think. He might jump, he might be looking down at the streets, he might turn around and go on with his life. I think it's the untold narrative that keeps it interesting. What happened before, what's going to happen after. It doesn't have a title, right now, maybe it once did, but I've forgotten it. The media is india ink (for the black) tempra (the cheap stuff, because we ran out of acrylic late in the year) and collaged newspaper.
One more thing... (the upside to my absent-minded-ness is that it will look like you got three comments on this entry..) It's interesting you posted this today, because the last two paintings I did were on cardboard! And with india ink, and light blue paint, too. Perhaps it was a psychic link? Although, it was probably just the nice quality free cardboard I found yesterday.
enigma
lunar
Winged creatures... sorry, it wouldn't let me do thumbnails.
I like the painting, the colors, the composition. The only thing troubling is why the poor pear is contemplating suicide.
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