This painting was originally an unfinished work, an underpainting in burnt sienna of a girl wearing a fur hat in the Winter. The painting lay around, abandoned in my studio, for two years, until last week when I painted her wearing a mask in a blizzard. Only I made the mask rubbed off and dissolving. As I painted it, I thought, it’s a slow fade because it will be hard to say, hard to know when the clear end to the pandemic will be.
This was a very unsettling thought, and through painting, through making something, for me it helped me emotionally. I thought, choose positive vibes. I added a bouquet of vibrant flowers, such as yellows and oranges. She is glancing at them sideways.
For the bouquet, I imagined a Chagall painting and thought of the dreamy floating images Chagall made.
Marc Chagall lived from 1887 – 1985. He was a Russian modernist artist who synthesized the art forms of Symbolism, Surrealism, Cubism and Fauvism. No one ever used color like he did. Chagall composed his images based on emotional and poetic associations, rather than on rules of pictorial logic. His early works were among the first expressions of psychic reality in modern art.
Remember to wear a mask. Stay strong.
This painting is available, email me if you are interested.
