Lady Slipper

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on November 15, 2015 at 10:08am

Curator’s Comments:  

 

It’s interesting to come back to this painting and see it in the context of the other wildly articulated floral subjects.  It shares the exuberant jewel like color palette, but has an alternately insectoid appearance that both retracts and repels the viewer.  The Lady Slipper is an intriguing form in itself, and the cropping of the space gives the form even greater alien orientation.  The pouch construction of the flower recalls Venus Flytraps, which perhaps accounts for the vaguely sinister associations. I appreciate the positioning of the orchid on a diagonal, and the manner in which the red stamens (anthers?) trail through the small amount of empty space.  Devoid of leaves or stems, it also presents as a self-contained and perhaps even animated organic entity.