Friday, September 11, 2009

"Cherry's Jubilee"



The painting, “Cherry’s Jubilee,” is hard to pass by. I found it immediately striking the first time I saw it. The content shows a young, tattooed women. Her appearance is the first thing to introduced opposing themes. She is dressed in a dress that looks like it came from a theater costume closet. The black and white stripped dress is met by two matching bubble gum pink bows at her waist. She is wearing black and white fingerless gloves, which accentuates the way she is biting on her pinky finger. The gloves are offset by a shrunken black and white stripped top hat with a black bow and feather slouched to the right side of her head. She is an attractive girl. Her black bob frames her face perfectly contrasting her porcelain skin and her crimson colored lips. Her eyes draw you into a dark abyss of wonder and question. Her arms, both covered with tattoos of music notes, a palm tree, a harp, a flamingo, a band-aid, among others, are pulled into her chest.

If the viewer is not immediately intrigued by her appearance, one would want to question her surroundings. She seems to have made her way into a carnival. Her cropped body, from the waist up, is framed between a ferris wheel and a carousel painted in grey hues with a powdery blue sky.

This painting interests me, like I already said, for a number of reasons. Of course my eyes like the colors and the content of the piece but the longer I look at it the more I want to know her story. I begin to ask myself a lot of questions. Who is she? Where is she from? Why is she at an empty carnival? Why is she dressed like that? Of course these questions I can only speculate at? But the fact that I am not quite sure what to make of this women leads me to something. She doesn’t look out of place in the painting but when you ask why would she be there, you don’t know? Everyone has their own story and people always surprise you. You can never think that everyone fits into certain guidelines. It’s better when they don’t. Perhaps that’s why she is called “cherry’s Jubilee.”

4 comments:

  1. I think your descriptive critique of "Cherries Jubilee" was very engaging. It brought out a lot of the detail in the painting that I could not get from the small image shown on your blog. The questions that you asked when you're wondering who she is and why she is there really make me want to find the answers- I love mysteries and this painting seems to be a good one. Excellent job!

    -Adam

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  2. The details you included the in description really made me stare and pick out the different qualities of the painting itself. I really like that. It's an engaging portrait, and the small details really catch your eye. I do respond to your questions as well. Like the "Why is she alone?" I totally get that. Personally, I'd be staring at a girl that looked like this at the carnival. It's crazy. Good job.

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  3. This is a great review Bernadette. All the content and formal issues are there. Well written, great description… good stuff

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  4. THIS IS FROM BILL
    Blog title: “Cherry’s Jubilee”
    Comment:
    I just noticed an inaccuracy: instead of saying “gray hues,” you should
    have said “shades of gray.” Hue refers to color.

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