Description
Marilyn Monroe – red lips on black
Wall art sculpts a white-silver head out of a wholly black ground, so the face reads as a relief laid onto darkness rather than as a picture painted into it: modern painting whose only saturated colours are the red of the lips and a thin gold stroke above the eyes.
Technique and texture
Broad fleshy planes of paint curl up at their edges and throw shadows of their own onto the black. Nothing is blended: white stays white and grey stays grey, and the change between them is made by the edge of an application and nothing else. The black behind is smooth and matt, which is what lets the relief in front of it stand so far forward.
The motif
The head is turned slightly aside and down, the eyes are nearly shut, and the whole face is assembled from a few large planes instead of being drawn. Waves of hair are suggested with a handful of strokes and break at the left edge into separate locks. Fine white and red droplets are scattered over the black like sparks.
Setting and placement
The contrast between black ground and white relief is extreme, so this hangs alone or not at all. On a pale wall its dark rectangle behaves like a window — a reception room, a hallway, a living room with one clear surface.
- Technique: hand-painted painting on canvas, broad fleshy knife planes, curled edges, matt black ground
- Palette: white, silver grey, black, red, gold
- Ideal for: living rooms, reception rooms, hallways
- Character: dramatic, contrasting, glamorous
Choose the size that suits your wall.
