Mini 25 is ink and acrylic on canvas (I used a new pen and canvas from New York). The style, in which the form is built up in layers of very fine hatching, reminds me a little of Paul Cadmus (I saw a really nice, and, you guessed it, tiny work of his on display at the Whitney Museum as part of the Real/Surreal show during my trip - fantastic.) The materials are similar to mini 20, but this time, include the element of color. I used my favorite turquoise and offset it with its complementary red-pink. The design is a love-child of art noveau and Austrian Expressionism (two of my favorite things).
As for the content, I would mentally file mini 25 under the heading of "beautiful disaster" paintings, a category to which I am particularly drawn. My hope is that, initially, it's beautiful, but in a slightly unsettling way that slowly reveals darkness upon further inspection. The flowers are poppies, and there are flies on them (I promise they're there; they're just really tiny) – symbols for delusion and decay. There's also a tiny plane flying overhead to suggest hovering, impending catastrophe just outside the frame (and a reference to the "fields and fields of poppies" outside the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz suggests that there is a city outside the frame). But it can also be viewed as a cute, little painting with flowers. I think it's both at the same time.
