Miss July

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on October 10, 2013 at 9:58am

Curator’s Comment:

 

These are strangely beguiling images, though somewhat morose within a romanticized feminine genre. Miss July captivates me because of the decidedly contemporary aspects to her persona, rather than an idealized fantasy of conventional girlish beauty.  She could be the neighbor next door, a sister or mother.  The pale bluish violet tonalities in her skin are eerily deathlike, in combination with her severed neck.  The constructed natural fiber nest she sits in (or alternately rises out of) gives further association to disembodied familial links.  I find her direct stare most effective in establishing an intense connection with the viewer, as well as a curious and conflicting awareness of her surreal surroundings.   Her blue eyes are clear and alert; faintly alarmed.  The lace pattern in the background softens the graphic quality of the painting, and offers respite from any potentially saturnine connotation with actual, physical decapitation.   While some of the other female portraits more directly associate the woman as part of nature, in either a destructive or symbiotic relationship, Miss July is wholly apart from her circumscribed containment.