The moon is not in this picture. You will go looking for it anyway.
What you get instead is a stone wall at dusk, deep blue-indigo behind it, and dark climbing roses holding onto the grey. The light is warm amber and gold, coming from somewhere just outside the frame and spreading through the leaves. In the shadows there is a thin line of violet. Nothing else is happening. That is the point.
Then the gaps start doing something
Look at the spaces between the vines rather than the vines. Carmen built a second picture out of nothing but branches, shadow and the holes between them. Nothing is painted onto the wall. It is all negative space, which is why you can stare straight at it and miss it, and why a nine-year-old usually finds it in about four seconds and will not stop talking about it.
She works the last hour of light, every time, and she hides one thing for the second look. She will not tell you what it is. As she puts it: logic takes a back seat. It does not leave the car.
Ruby, one of our critics, signed this one at 7.67 and wrote: “The artwork’s depth and use of shadow eloquently reveal a sleeping face, rewarding close inspection.”
Getting it on the wall
Matte canvas, an inch and a quarter deep, stretched on solid wood and wrapped over the edges, so it arrives ready to hang straight from the box. One nail, no frame, no glass bouncing your ceiling light back at you. Matte means the amber glow stays a glow.
A rule worth keeping: match the furniture, not the wall. Roughly two-thirds the width of whatever sits beneath it. Landscape, 16×12 in (41 x 30 cm) at $129, 24×18 in (61 x 46 cm) at $149, 32×24 in (61 x 45.7 cm) at $229. The price on the work is the price. Free shipping in the continental US, and it is made to order, so nobody on your street has this one.
Who should skip it
A room that wants to be restful. Or anyone who needs a picture to explain itself at first glance — Charlotte, another of our critics, felt it “doesn’t quite capture attention like it should,” and she is right that it does not shout. It waits.
If that sounds like your kitchen wall or the hallway guests stand in, take it home. If you want to sit with it, go see the rest of Carmen’s garden pieces — or follow her, and you will see the next hidden one before anyone tells you where to look.
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