Title: Paradise Garden
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 100×76 cm
9 Comments
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a multi-disciplinary dialog
Posted by Angela Ferreira on February 4th, 2007
Title: Paradise Garden
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 100×76 cm
Filed in from imagination,painting
9 Comments Comments closed
Angela,
This is an interesting contrast to Carina’s Garden of Eden painting. Your picture presents a puzzle, however, and in this way they are similar. There is a key on the left. The key to what? The glass contains? Water? The distant grassy hills have an intense color that brings them into the foreground, reversing the depth cues that you create with occlusion. The pillow has a fold on the left side that lines up directly with the back top of the table-cloth. These features all give the picture a tension and mystery that is almost unsettling. I find myself asking, who is this woman and what does she want from me? She looks at me with so much intensity, but I cannot read her thoughts. The two sides of her face seem to have different expressions (I notice when I cover one side or the other), but neither expression alone can explain the overall feel of her gaze. She has her arm extended on the right side of the painting. Who or what is there?
All this tension seems to be held from being overwhelming by the lovely dress with its muted colors and delicate texture of the floral pattern.
This is not a picture I can understand in one look, or even one hour of looking. But I will look and think more…
Who could not recognize this as an Angela from a hundred paces?
I like how the white flower in the hair echoes the creased pillow, as well as the flowers in the dress and the leaf shapes above. I like the sinuous curves of hair and grass and creases and glass.
As Karl noted, gaze seems very important here. I feel like the dog is looking right at us, while the woman looks into some vague distance, that is, she’s not focusing on anything external. Intense though dreamy. Karl, when you said “looks at me”, did you really feel she’s engaging you with her gaze? Or just looking out of the painting?
I like it so much that I would want to buy it and I find it as good as David Hockney.
The right (the viewer’s left) side, 2/3 of the painting, holds all the beauty and enlightenment while the left side expresses uncertainty.
The right eye gazes serenely, the right hair is pulled back, held by a flower. The table holds refreshment and most of the key.
The left eye stares ahead, with a gaze that is scared (?), blank(?) but definitely lacking in enlightenment. The left hair is loose. The dog, sitting comfortably on her right arm, is suspiciously staring at someone or something to the woman’s left.
An impressive painting! The woman’s face is more expressive, if I remember correctly, than those of the summer girls.
I’ve been thinking about that glass. Angela, is this painting finished? It seems like a bit of pink or red in the glass would add an interesting color harmony.
In my Paradise I want no keys and my cup full (a preference for Red).
The dog reminds me too much of the one up the street that yelps and nips at me on my runs and the Girl-Woman-Doll is, well, I certainly hope… an unnecessary fantasy.
D.,
interesting idea. I will think about what my paradise is like or, perhaps, rather my way to my paradise.
I am still more into physical activity. As a friend of mine recently said, there is only one speed for a sagittarius, fast and faster.
Angela,
What I liked about your painting is the way the woman’s body curves and sinks into the pillow. Her hip curves up just a bit in a very senuous way, and the curve is echoed in many other places, but most specifically in the branches over her head.
The dog looks a bit dangerous to me, though, I think it’s jealous of its place and doesn’t want anyone getting near.
Karl’s observation about the warm distance playing off the cool foreground makes me smile. It’s one of my favorite ploys and you’ve used it doubly with the sensual curves of the cool blues and grays. What a delight.
I don’t think this woman is mysterious. I think she is comfortable. It’s that hip and the loitering hand that make me think so.
yes,the hip is fabulous