Style 10

Artist Statement

This piece was created for my mom. I was looking around our house, which is covered in art of all forms, but not much of my own art. I don't fault my mom for this at all as my paintings tend to be very loud with bright colors and sometimes ridiculous compositions. But I wanted to create something my mom could actually display. I looked around the house and noticed the only pieces in the house painted with shockingly bright colors are these 3 metal plates, a red one, a yellow one and a blue one, my mom has hung above the sink since before I can remember. I decided to use these as my inspiration as well as real elements from my mothers kitchen to create 3 snapshots of a Mediterranean style kitchen. In the blue piece, inspired by the blue plate, I painted a rooster, a longtime favorite of my mothers, as well as dish towels as she loves to collect them and a shelf of cook books. My mother loves books and is especially proud of her cookbook collection, the most famous of which is called JOY of Cooking. For the red piece I painted my mother's favorite yellow vase with dying flowers in them because that's how my mom always leaves our flowers, believing they look more "organic" in that state. I also painted one of our hammered metal kitchen lights and a bottle of red wine. Finally, for the yellow piece, I painted specific jars my mom has collected and stores our rice and nuts in, as well as a lemon tree in the background for her love of lemons. I added her favorite cherry red Le Creuset pot in the window as many family meals are made in the well-loved pot. I added the flamingo in the shape of a swan as a personal touch and while my mother is an amazing and adventurous cook, we do not eat flamingoes.

This piece, although vaugly cartoonish, probably has the most personal connection and the sketches especially were very fun to create and weave different elements of my mother into them. I painted the paintings all with a color wash on the canvas of whatever color plate they aligned with. In this way there are bright colors peaking through the other colors. I have never done this before and I'm not totally sure if it made a difference.