When an artist statement reads “Dear Art Lover, with all the horror going on in the world today, for me, painting is an escape into the realm of colour. I don’t care what direction the brush strokes are going in or what genre it is, all I know is it is fun. If my quirky paintings brighten your day and make you smile, I’m happy”, it will make you want to find out who is the artist behind it.
Ann Pearson creates happy cartoon-like images in ink and The Visitor, our ‘Artwork of the Week’, bursts with optimism.
The composition is a still life with all the required elements for the genre: a vase with flowers, a bowl of fruit and a table. The bottle of wine completes the image while giving it a certain life-style element.
Yet what animates the picture and also inspires its title, is the visitor, a red squirrel, full of life and curiosity.
We can imagine a whole story from this image: was the window left open on purpose for the visitor as this wasn’t the squirrel’s the first visit, or was the window left open by mistake and the visitor just happened to come by, looking for its dinner; the squirrel lives happily in the nearby tree. What is your interpretation?
