reflections
I started this painting a while ago but only recently got around to finishing it. The jug is from my mother's side; I associate it with special family dinners and brunches, when the table is properly set with crystal and silver. When I started the painting, the jug was a little tarnished, but my mother has polished it since then, resulting in the body of the jug having crisper, bluer color than the lip. I chose to keep the jug's surroundings rather stark and let the reflections speak for themselves—my studio is what populates its surfaces, especially the wild patterns of my Patagonia blanket. It is great fun painting slick, shiny surfaces like this, an exercise bordering on abstraction. Rarely was I painting the jug itself, but rather the distorted world it projected; it is like painting a chameleon. The more you let your eye play tricks on you, the better the result!
"Quicksilver." Oil on panel, 2017.
