Today I'd like to show you another batch of painting from the solo exhibition of the wonderful artist, Vera Dan and also invite you to join me in my attempt of solving the mystery on each canvas. If you follow my blog, you know it's a fun game and the more we are the more results we get.
Vintage With A Lamp
So let's see what we have here :) Two chicks first of all, which is a recurring element already as we saw these two beauties earlier on other paintings. A chain and a lock, a petrol lamp and spiderweb? The whole scene looks very vintage and I love how the colors were selected. The mustard yellow goes well with the gray and dark red. It's a bit abstract as well, but that's why it is so exquisite in my opinion. The details also worth mentioning. Look at the lace under the chicks and the design of the lock.
Mărioara (or Lady Mary)
Lady Mary sitting in front of the chicken coop, looking happy. This painting depicts a simple and happy, village life. Look at the abstract background, it's fantastic. And the mustard yellow color is present again.
Their Holiness
At first glance, I thought the title of the painting will be the most obvious, hands, but I was wrong. Hands play a huge role in art, no matter what kind of art we're talking about, painting, photography or sculpture. Hands can be very expressive, thus a good subject to depict. Here, the a artist chose to use a red fabric as background, maybe velvet. It's a huge contract between the old hands and the velvet in my opinion, but this is not a problem, on the contrary.
Question For Leana
The theme of this painting is kind of similar to Mărioara (or Lady Mary), but the scene is depicted from a different perspective. What I love about this painting is the lady's facial expression, which shows happiness and the other thing is the colors. Look at that bright red and the mustard color. perfect match and the lady's cream dress just adds to it. This is why these paintings are so pleasant for the eye. At least that's how I see it.
Lady Ioana
Now comes the fun part. Have you ever wondered what inspires artists? Where are the ideas coming from? Here's one example.
This painting was inspired by a real scene, or a photo of a real scene. You know I'm a regular at exhibitions, but have never seen the photo that inspired the artist, exhibited too. I love the idea, I think it's very cool and gives the visitor more clarity and a base for comparing the two. I love the painting, the lady looks very happy and the whole painting is so life like. She's making mămăligă, which is the Romanian version of polenta and used to be staple food for centuries. So having mămăligă on the table meant life, it was like having bread. So you can imagine the importance of this painting.
Welcome To Take
Another one. Different scene, but it's about the same thing. A man making mămăligă and inviting everyone to have some.
This way you have the chance to not only appreciate the painting, but compare it with the photo and see how similar the two are. Or even choose which one you prefer. I would always go with the painting as it's a lot of work and you need skills to create the scene on canvas.
Mura
And here comes another fun one. Before I go into analyzing it, I have to tell you, I love it! The color combination is again something I like and think it's a good mix. The bright blue goes well with the dark cream and the rest just adds to it. What also makes this painting special is the things you see on it. The bird on the lady's shoulder, the net-like blue pattern, to name a few, but the lady's hat is not usual either.
The Hat
I hope you see how brilliant this painting is. The artist clearly loves dandelions as she had quite a few paintings already with dandelions, but those were mostly bouquets. This is also a bouquet, but in form of a hat. Very original and the dark chocolate background was a nice idea. I love it! I hope you like it too.
Looking back, it always amazes me how many cool idea one artist can have. I've seen sculptors creating ladies bust with a hat full of flowers, like Rodin's Young Girl with Roses on Her Hat, but that's not something unusual as back in those days ladies had flowers on their hat. Here on the other hand, the hat is a whole bouquet. I really love Vera Dan's works. To my surprise, the paintings were for sale, so I had a look at the price list and ... well, what I saw was directly proportional with the greatness of the artworks. I'm not at that level 😬 (yet). But I'd love to have a painting from her, one day.
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