PARADISE LOST

I had been sooooo excited when I saw this invite:

DanielleMalherbeParadiseLostInvite

 

Look! A long format painting! I’m not the only crazy person to attempt this oddball shape!

I wrapped up the baby, bullied the husband into the car, and our little family went to attend the artist’s walkabout (the baby’s first. Momentous occasion).

Man, was I disappointed by the real thing:

Danielle Malherbe 5

Paradise Lost

Danielle Malherbe

Oil on Canvas

2015

Okay, once I got over myself and actually looked, there were a number of things going for the exhibition. For starters, her themes are reinforced not only by the symbols she uses and how she uses them, but by all her painting techniques.

The Paradise Lost exhibition was about the sanitation of our suburban lives, and how we somehow long for wildness but refuse to give into that longing, rather manicuring our gardens to perfection in hopes that our lives will follow suit.

But something is amiss. There are snakes on our granny blankets.

And if you look closely, you can see that the grass was painted on a red underpainting: Juxtaposing danger (the snakes, red) with safety (the picnic blanket, grass, green). We think we are safe in our security villages, in our suburban perfection, but are we really? Is “safe” really what makes us happy and alive?

Ms Malherbe talked about cropping pictures from home magazines in close, to get a sense of claustrophobia, that repression that is so common in suburbia. While talking about this next picture, she mentioned that feeling of the undercurrent, something just below the surface. The painting was hung just below eye level, drawing my gaze unexpectedly down.

Danielle Malherbe 1

Paradise Lost

Danielle Malherbe

Oil on Canvas

2015

Snakes featured in more than one painting, but there was this lone wild dog. Ms Malherbe talked about the wild dog as her animus. While reading Women Who Run With The Wolves many years ago, I asked myself if there isn’t a better image for me. We don’t have wolves here in South Africa. We have the Painted Dogs.

Danielle Malherbe 7

Paradise Lost

Danielle Malherbe

Oil on Canvas

2015

The other person at the walkabout kept on asking about the painting technique. It was a little bit interesting to me, but Willem complained about it afterward, saying that knowing the technique didn’t really add value to the discussion of the paintings.

All in all, I felt that the works showed promise but were not quite there yet. I don’t know what there is, and I know my own work isn’t there. Paradise Lost was very close, though. Especially if you consider that I’m still thinking about these swimming pools and snakes months after seeing them.

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