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Douglas Safranek
Apple and Katydids, surreal egg tempera still life nature painting

2022

About the Item

The flatness of egg tempera lends itself readily to the uncanny tone of Doug Safranek's still life painting. Safranek diligently layers small, precise marks of the hand-mixed paint, capturing his tiny specimen in immense detail. A nod to 17th century Dutch vanitas paintings, Safranek modernizes, and lends a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor to the mode with dizzying, raked perspective. The insects appear almost Brobdingnagian as they scuttle across sumptuously rendered apples. A statement from the artist: "I had a panel in my studio containing several, unrelated demo exercises I did for of my ASL online class (one was an apple--the other how to soften edges, and achieve a woodgrain effect, etc.) . Several folk mentioned they liked the way the two images looked together on the panel so I decided to come up with a composition uniting the two and this is what resulted. The Katydid is my friend from the Catskills--last year I followed it around the house for several days lighting and photographing it as it wandered on ceiling and walls. (Eventually, I released it outside onto a leafy bush where I hope it had a long and happy life!) I made the apple look as if illuminated from above by a soft spotlight in a night time setting. I'm imagining the Katydids are starting to gather, attracted by the light. Peculiar and a bit silly--but that's the story of this composition."
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