Young Love- Young Harlequin

This is a 6″x6″ mixed media painting on wood. The sides are 1.5″ deep and are painted turquoise.
This painting is $70 and is available HERE.

When I was growing up, I had two framed prints on my wall. They were old, even when I got them, with beautiful gold frames. I am thinking they are from around the 20’s. The were of a young girl and a harlequin in a beautiful garden at night.

I was never sure which picture was first and which one was second. I would lie in my bed and look at these paintings making up stories about what was happening in each picture.
The story would change, I would get confused: Why does he have his mask on in this one and off in the other? why does he look sad? Is he waiting for her or did she just leave him? My story was never complete before sleep would take me.

Perhaps this is why I have a fascination with Harlequins.
Perhaps this is why I always paint first and then make up the story of what is happening in the painting afterward. I am reading my subconscious. Maybe I am just trying to justify my painting by giving it a story.

I still have these framed prints hanging next to my bed but I can be honest, there is seldom a time when I lie in bed looking at them. One weekend morning, while still asleep, Imogen, who is often in my bed by the morning, woke me by saying, “That part looks like a horses head’. She had found an optical illusion within the print.
It made me smile because she must have been lying in bed looking at these prints, just as I did. Two little girls, 30 years apart staring at the Harlequin and his love. It makes me wonder if there was a little girl before me that had done the same thing.