Painted Ladies

The original was created using oil on panel.
 

Based in nearby San Jose, artist Lacey Bryant creates wistfully anachronistic paintings that impart a sense of ambiguity. Her paintings exhibit an underlying narrative of shared human experiences such as connection and isolation, something each of us are experiencing while sheltering in place. Bryant combines elements of classical landscape painting, portraiture and still life in a layered unreality where every disembodied object conveys meaning.
 

Bryant paints primarily on wood surfaces, often utilizing found wood for the unique textures and history it offers. Drawing inspiration from dreams and memories, Bryant creates her artwork employing a combination of plein air, still life, and photo references. Her subjects are often dreamlike, inhabiting a realm of strange, sentimental charm with nuances of darkness and mystery. Works like Pink Ladies focus on the midpoint of the narrative leading the viewer to contemplate what occurs in the moments leading up to and after the depicted scene so they may interpret it in their own way.
 

Contrasting joyousness with melancholy, familiar with the unknown, Lacey sets out to quietly captivate and unnerve her viewers through the underlying tension of her work. In Pink Ladies, a pink lingerie-clad woman stands contemplative in front of a decaying, boarded up pink Victorian house. Did she emerge from the house, or did the house appear from a different dimension - one that seemingly opens up in the form of the large periwinkle shadow behind the house? Are the flittering shapes flying diagonally from the figure to the composition’s right bottom corner butterflies? Birds? Fairies?
 

What meaning do you give Bryant’s painting? Write a story about what happened just before or after Bryant’s image. Submit your story to emergencyartmuseum@gmail.comand it may be shared on our website.

*anachronism – In art, an anachronism is a temporal displacement; something that is out of place in a certain time. For example, if King Louis XIV of France was painted holding a cell phone or Julius Caesar watching a movie, those technologies did not exist in their lifetimes and would therefore be considered anachronistic. Anachronism is used especially in works of imagination that rest on a historical basis.
 

*plein air – The French term plein air means out of doors and refers to the practice of painting entirely finished artworks out of doors.